Racism And The Civil Rights Movement

Individuals who have hatred towards others who are different than them has plagued man-kind since the dawn of time. A particular type of hatred that is focused on differences in physical and cultural characteristics is known as racism. Racism can be shown in modern times in a number of ways including differences in wage, employment, and incarceration rates to just name a few. This social problem was significantly worse before 1960’s and the Civil Rights Movement, but the problem is still visible even today albeit less overt ways. For this paper, we will analyze the differences between whites and blacks and will not include other races. White people have been known to have an “advantage” in today’s society. One of these advantages

It gets even worse: out of women being jailed for longer than 30 days, 93% were Black (Adams. 1976). If we extend the length and go to women sentenced for longer than three months, 97% were Black (Adams. 1976). The criminal system has been better than those numbers but still not equal in the more recent years and is definitely not perfect. Today, numerous videos can be seen of a White cop beating against a Black, handcuffed man who is showing no signs of resisting arrest. Though there have been incidences of a White cop beating a White handcuffed man in a similar situation, the vast majority of situations occur involve black individuals. A specific situation where brutality can be seen against an un-armed black man would be the incident of Eric Garner where he unfortunately lost his life to the hands of police officers. While being choked by cops, Mr. Garner is wrestled to the ground by multiple cops and starts saying that he can’t breathe. The cops continue to forcefully hold him in a chokehold to where he seems to have a seizure (TheGuardian.com. 2014). He later was pronounced dead at a hospital. Another example of the unfairness can been see at traffic stops in Ferguson, Missouri, one out of every eight traffic stops were a cop

Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end there. The workforce continues to discriminate against Black people by paying them lower wages than their white counter parts. In 2016, it was reported that the average wage of a White worker was $25.22 an hour and the average wage of a Black worker was $18.49 per hour (Vega, 2016). What do these specific set of statistics say? That either Black workers either are not getting high paying jobs, or they are not being paid the same amount as White workers for the same work. This puts pressure on Black individuals to search outward for help with programs like Welfare, because their jobs, if hired, do not pay them enough. White America fails to realize that minorities, in particular for this paper Black citizens, do not make enough averagely as a White citizen would on average and this is a portion of the reason why they are stereotyped as “lazy” for using social programs or not workers at all. A portion of this inequality could be seen in waiters as well. In August and September of 2012, research was conducted on how waiters of different race were tipped. On average, White waiters were tipped 20.49 percent of the bill and Black waiters were tipped 19.33 percent. Now, that may not be the biggest difference in terms of earning but it is still a recognizable difference against Black citizens (Brewster.