Throughout America’s history, racism has always been present. Since the 1800’s the public has viewed African Americans as “awful people” or as no people at all. Slavery ended and time went on, but racism is becoming present again. This time, I foresee the roles might have switched. Is racism getting worse in America? Are people becoming more hateful? Racism between whites and blacks in America has increased in the past decade. Between the chaos of Ferguson, the recent attacks, and the election of President Barack Obama, it has changed the way people view America and all of the societies in it. Racism between whites and blacks has increased in the past decade and is illustrated through the chaos of Ferguson, Missouri. On August
Some believe that Barack Obama has spiked the amount of racial activities that we are currently involved with today. Since the election of Obama, there has been a ton of occurrences based on racism. Has it always been this atrocious or is it just a coincidence that these events have been occurring progressively over the last few years? With Obama becoming president, we now have a different public figure to blame for the problems we are facing. Some view it as if he corrupted America. People blame the fact that he is African American, and consequently America is doomed. Citizens of America believe he is provoking the amount of racial activities; however, I do not believe he is the cause of them. There has always been racial occurrences going on in the societies around us, but there are times when you should not provoke them. When the Michael Brown case had sprung upon us, Obama made comments such as “This has stained the hearts of black children.” He simply should not have had a meeting with Brown’s parents, especially when others die each and every day. Obama stated to them that the police officer was in the wrong. Our president –the man protecting our country- is agreeing with the man and his family, who attacked an officer in law enforcement. It was kind of him to give his condolences for Michael brown, but all it did was cause uproar. People were ranting outside of the white house showing their
They were attacking this older couple in result of them being white and happened to be in the wrong part of town. NBC news states that the gang members surrounded the couple 's car and screamed racial slurs at them. The African American gang had ripped them out of their car and brutally attacked them. The man fled, trying to get help. While he was seeking help from local citizens, the gang members dragged the innocent women by her hair, and slammed her head against the pavement. Some African Americans are going as far as rioting to prove that the whites are the racist ones. That we are the major cause of the terrible occurrences; when they are. Another attack had sprung upon the community when an 18 year old student had been brutally attacked to the point where his own family could not recognize him. The white student was out jogging one morning, like he always did, and a group surrounded him. The gang members were shouting things and started to attack. They had beaten this young man to the point of brain injury. He then was forced to undergo two surgeries; one to remove the clot in his brain from the attack, and the second for facial reconstruction. Why when African American gangs attack it is justified and given excuses? “If white mobs harassed black people, screamed racist slogans and claimed that even the existence of black people was
As a nation, we have made great strides at improving race relations, but this does not mean that racism is extinct. As was pointed out in the class lecture on the Civil Rights Movement, many things have improved, but the fight for civil rights should be continuing as there is still oppression in operation in our own State as was made clear on the issue of suppressing voter rights. Racism is not born into mankind, racism is taught. This shows that if hate can be taught, then love and respect for others can be taught also.
In one incident when a white teenager Deryl Dedman ran over his truck over Black guy James Craig Anderson by passing a racial slur, “ I ran that nigger over” (Rankine 94)(10). This shows the white’s extra ordinary powers to oppress the black community and the failure of legal system
Race in America: Is it really such a problem now as it was so many years ago? I think my generation of young adults is reaping the 1st benefits of a “racist free” society, and I put racist free society in quotations because our society may never truly be without some form of racism because I believe that hate for another race or culture is seeded in our youth at a very early age, and that our kids our taught, in a sense, to hate by their parents words, actions, sayings, jokes, beliefs, etc and are made to think that that kind of offensiveness is ok, and thus grow up with that racism growing into racial hatred.
There have been traces of racism throughout America since the country was founded. Blacks, along with other races, were constantly fighting to be treated equally. Even though the slaves were freed in 1863, they still faced many racial and prejudice issues. However, in the early 1900s, it seemed as if African Americans were flourishing in the town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The thought of African Americans prospering disgusted most whites to the point they wanted to do something about it. These thoughts and actions caused a horrific event known as Tulsa Race Riots that not only affected everyone in the time period, but will continue to affect us and live in our memory.
There is some history that explains why the incident on that Chicago beach escalated to the point where 23 blacks and 15 whites were killed, 500 more were injured and 1,000 blacks were left homeless (96). When the local police were summoned to the scene, they refused to arrest the white man identified as the one who instigated the attack. It was generally acknowledged that the state should “look the other way” as long as private violence stayed at a low level (Waskow 265). This police indifference, viewed by most blacks as racial bias, played a major role in enraging the black population. In the wake of the Chica...
In this world today, hate is becoming increasingly more abundant, especially as it concerns race. Whether it be an unarmed black man shot by a white police officer or the use of racial slurs towards someone, it seems like racism is all around us. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, it shows a little girl named Scout using racial slurs. Racism is so culturally accepted in the town that it’s okay to use racial slurs such as the N-Word that even Atticus, a lawyer representing a black man falsely accused of rape, uses it a couple of times. Earlier this year, the Ku Klux Klan, a group of white supremacists, held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and proved that racism isn’t a thing of the past.
As stated before, racism is not something that people thought of in the last ten years, it is an ongoing theme that has been flowing through the story of the United States. Starting from the enslavement of black Africans, and moving along to the days of when African Americans were separated from white Americans even though they lived in the same country and walked the same streets. Racism is seen all over the world. Hitler killed close to six million Jews during World War II due to the fact that he claimed that Germans were superior. He said that Jews polluted Europe and began “cleaning” it up. “Racism serves both to discriminate against ethnic minorities and to maintain advantages and benefits for White Americans.” This is what Mark Feinberg, PhD, stated about this issue and most people would agree.
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
Imagine being beaten every time someone makes a mistake. Imagine not being beaten and only later killed for committing one of these mistakes. Imagine loving this individual, too. Now imagine being the one to beat this person for their protection. This is the complex situation of many in the African American community.
In 2008, Barack Obama was elected the first African-American president of the United States. As a result, many scholars, journalists, political pundits, and cultural critics argue that this monumental achievement indicated the commencement of a post-racial society in the United States. Based on this notion, they have made the assumption that race and ethnicity no longer influence one’s experience or how the country operates. However, in spite of the monumental achievements this country has undergone in an attempt to create a post-racial society, racism and discrimination have not been destroyed, they have simply taken a new form.
Racism in politics seems to be a primary topic that has grabbed the attention of the public due to the fact of people waking up and noticing the problem. Originally after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1870 the first black U.S. senators were elected to office. Then after those few senators, there was a long time where none were elected. Racism still has not disappeared, even after multiple attempts to stop it. In politics today, lawmakers consider many movements such as “Black Lives Matter” and even consider these movements in the presidential candidate debates. Needless to say, this conversation would be nonexistent if racism was not in politics.
According to Opposing Viewpoints Online, Racism is “a prejudice or an animosity against a person or group of people who belong to a different race”. Many Americans wrongly assume that the problem of racism is no more simply because our president is a Black man. These are the same Americans supporting the confederate flag, screaming All Lives Matter, and battling blackness through LCD screens.
Such a simple but revealing quote captures the essence of a new form of racism that has evolved in America. Appalling cases of overt racism still manifest themselves, but the racism of today has become considerably more subtle than in the past. This subtlety is likely the cause of America’s disillusioned attitude towards racism. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice.” Many have falsely assumed that with the eradication of explicit segregation laws, the problems of race and more importantly racism had been solved. The racism of today might not be as embedded within the law, but the racism of today quietly, yet undeniably, benefits and privileges certain groups over others. I would challenge society to reconsider its definition of racism, and use that new understanding to help make for a better tomorrow. The first step is for society to concede that America has produced a systemized hierarchy, one that has become known as white privilege.
The economy is the main reason for racism. Just by getting on social media or looking at the news, you see those degrading African Americans. Obama was a pretty good president, but everything he did or his family did, the economy made it seem like he was the worst president ever or that he was not doing his job. In the economy, it is harder for African Americans to find jobs than it is for whites.
Part of human nature is judging something by what surrounds it even if it is another human. Think of a community that has every color, every race, every religion, and every kind of person that community however, doesn’t value each other to some point which causes a problem, a problem that we call racism in today’s era, a problem that needs to be eliminated because it allows a gap that shouldn’t exist in our society. Our society must understand that it isn’t okay to discriminate someone for how they look or what they believe in or what color they happen to be, specifically speaking to those who aren’t smart enough to realize that discrimination isn’t making any change for the better nor is it allowing certain groups in the community to advocate