Racism in America Today

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.” Frederick Douglas said this in 1857 because of the constant struggle blacks had to face to gain their civil rights. Like many sociological ideas, racism has a familiar use and countless everyday meanings. The sociological viewpoint gives race as basically a social category and examines race relations with reference to societal constructions and development. According to Philomena Essed in her book Understanding Everyday Racism, “The specific forms racism takes are determined by the economic, political, social, and organizational conditions of society.” Many people are unaware of racism; people may ask how racism is incorporated in our lives? Why do blacks even believe that individuals are racist towards them? These are constant questions that maybe aren’t asked but definitely questioned. The answer is control. Control is the factor to racism. The more you can bring a group down and make them feel belittled, the easier it is to control them.

Now let’s take a look at the history of slavery with blacks. It all started in Jamestown, Virginia which is where the first slave ships had entered in August of 1619. While blacks became upset because of being enslaved as an indentured servant they started to revolt against the white supremacy. Revolts happened in New York in 1712 and another in South Carolina in 1739. With the revolts happening, the white supremacy feels as if they needed to change laws to make it to where blacks have stricter laws. The bad part is that these laws applied to slaves as well as “free negroes” at that time. This, like I said before, puts blacks under control giving them restrictions and telling them what they can and can’t do to scare them into no revolting and to just accept the change that was going on. Philomena Essed says “Blacks in the United States tried virtually everything in their struggle for liberation—revolt, petitions, armed attacks, economic boycott, demonstrations, riots, court action, the vote, alliances, [and] Black Nationalism.” This made blacks upset and hopeless because it seemed whatever they tried to do it was never enough to end the countless struggles.

Slavery had lasted for several of years. During the times of 1820 and 1860 controversy between the north and the south started to emerge.