Intraracial Racism

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Intraracial Racism

Racism. African-Americans and “Whites”, African-Americans and Hispanics, Asian Americans and “Whites”, Asian Americans and Hispanics. Think of racism, and thoughts of clashes and conflicts between one of these ethnic groups and another predominate. The idea of racism is seldom associated with two groups of the same ethnicity.

However, another type of racism exists, one not necessarily rooted in ethnic differences, but rather on cultural and demographic differences, as well as location and economic status. It is expressed between communities or sectors within a racial group, and works to further partition them. Intraracial racism fragments communities already struggling with interracial racism. Being internal to an ethnic group, this notion is rarely considered by outsiders to the group.

In recent years, I have experienced two examples of internal racism within a racial group. The first one deals directly with my identity as a Puerto Rican. Puerto Ricans living in the Island have a general view of those who have migrated and now live in the United States. In most cases, individuals have moved to the US searching for wider economic opportunities, mainly during the first half of the 20th century, when the Island was shifting from a mainly agricultural to a predominantly industrial economy. Emigrants were looked at as inferior, as they represented the lower end of the economic spectrum. Additionally, most of them did not have a high level of education. Similar to

many immigrant groups nowadays, they were financially hard-hit and could only obtain the lowest jobs when moving to the United States, which in turn led to the formation of a specific type of community. They were constrained to housing in p...

... middle of paper ...

...skin color. In addition to physical traits, this kind of racism can also be class-based, as in the case of Puerto Ricans.

Racism within a racial group is a problem that is not as readily addressed as interracial racism. However, it is a concrete problem that needs to be tackled as much as any other form of racism. Despite this, it remains an issue not thoroughly explored, and consequently not sufficiently dealt with. Maybe it roots in and feeds on racism between racial groups, and one cannot have one without the other.

Works Cited:

Jones, Trina. “Colorism.” Duke Law Magazine. Fall 2000. Volume 18, Number 12. < http://www.law.duke.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2000/colorism.html>

Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. New York, New York: Penguin Books, Ltd. 1970.

PBS Frontline. “A Class Divided.” 1985. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/>

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