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Racial and social identity
Characteristics of conflict theory of sociology
Racial and social identity
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After going to this ACES I feel as if the film Am Not Racist… Am I? points a lot of the blame of racism on our society being of the conflict perspective. To begin with, they believe that racism is a macro problem and not a micro problem. This is extremely prevalent at the very beginning of the movie where they state that all white people are racist. This is due to systemic racism and systemic power the white people had. The big connection would be in the value and critical conflict perspective. The value conflict perspective states social problems are generated by a lack of continuity between culture’s ideal values and the realities of day-to-day experience. The film touches on this a lot when talking about how the white majority didn’t understand
“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” Peggy McIntosh wrote in her article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Too often this country lets ignorance be a substitute for racism. Many believe that if it is not blatant racism, then what they are doing is okay. Both the video and the article show that by reversing the terms, there is proof that racism is still very existent in this world. By looking into A Class Divided and White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack along with their ability to broaden the cultural competence, once can see how race is still very prominent in our culture.
Racism did not start with just one person nor one truth. Neither will racism end with one person or truth. I believe it takes a contribution of people, the American nation, to commit willingly. We need to listen and learn, talk and share, and understand the truths that each individual owns. Spike Lee's movie comes across as a brilliant and powerful illustration of how America's condescending behavior impairs our racial society.
Firstly, I am going to talk about the one video we all watched which was Race the Power of an Illusion part 2. I am choosing this one because I gained a lot of information on it. It started off by talking about our constitution and how all men are created equal. Well when you look back at it, was every man created equal? The answer is NO! Back when they first started this country they had slaves and men were more dominant then women. A slave had no rights at all and resorting back to the saying, they definitely are not treated equal. After that part, they talked about how race became to be, basically one man thought they were better than someone else because of their skin color. Race is more of an idea, no one is born to be prejudice, or even to discriminate a certain person because of their skin color. I believe if everyone tried we could get rid of this concept completely, but it will take a whole lot of effort and is not an individual task. When we went over this video in class, we talked about what if there was no such thing as race? Would our society be a whole lot better, or would we still have some other kind of hardship? I believe that we would have another hardship but to me, it does not matter the color of someone’s skin, it...
Racism is something that has always existed, exists now and will most likely exist in years to come. Although it has diminished a great deal since the beginning of the 20th century, it is still a problem in today’s world and many feel that it may always be a problem. Civil rights movements have helped ease the sting of racism. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. was a black man who fought for civil rights in a peaceful and non-violent way, by giving powerful and persuasive speeches. “Non violence is a way of humility and self-restraint. We Negroes talk a great deal about our rights, and rightly so. We proudly proclaim that three-fourths of the people of the world are colored” (King Jr. 220).in fact, his lectures and dialogues “sparked the conscience of a generation“(King Center-1). Even after civil rights movements there are still so many people in the world that cannot see through race, gender and ethnic background. Stereotyping and poor judgment are still very active in people’s minds today. Black people were and in some instances still are discriminated against and looked down upon because of the color of their skin. One saying “Never judge a book by its cover” goes along with the idea to judge people by their character rather than the way they look.
It appears that we have been investigating the cause and effects of race and racism for quick some time, as a middle age adult in the year 2015, I feel that we have run into a brick wall which seems too hard to break though, too wide to get around and runs to deep to get under.
Race: The Power of an Illusion was an interesting 3 part film. After watching this, it made me questioned if race was really an illusion or not. It is absolutely taboo to think that the one thing that separates people the most may be a myth in itself. “We can 't find any genetic markers that are in everybody of a particular race and in nobody of some other race. We can 't find any genetic markers that define race.” (Adelman and Herbes Sommers 2003). Racism is something created in the U.S made to create supremacy for the creator. Racism is not just the way someone thinks, it is something that has is manifested in our society to separate us and can be traced to our everyday activities.
Dating back to the beginning of times people have always been looked at different depending on the color of their skin or what your religion, race, or beliefs may be. It is in our human nature to not like people for certain things that they are. Many will argue that in this day in age we are no longer at a race war but how can you be so sure when you actually open your eyes and see reality. Rapper Kanye West once said “racism is still alive, they just be concealing it” and these words are everything but false. You must ask yourself the real question about racism and it is how could you ever cure such a thing in people’s minds? People are free to think and believe what ever they would like and old habits such as racism will never change in people.
Racism in The Color of Fear Let’s start with the definition of racism. Racism refers to the belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities, that a certain race is inherently superior or inferior to others, and/or that individuals should be treated differently based on their ascribed race. There are two main issues in the movie, the “The Color of Fear” that I will discuss. These two issues include grouping people of color on the basis of the way one looks, and the attitudes of different races towards one another. Including also the idea that the white “do-gooder” feels that subconscious racism is being taken care of, when in all reality it isn’t.
In the United States, the problem of equality has never been more prevalent. Equality between race, age group and gender are some of the most common. One that really catches a lot of attention is race. The problem of race started when people from Africa were slave in the United States. Once President Abraham Lincoln free the slaves, the hatred towards the now free African Americans grew premensdly. This lead to segregation, and eventually the civil rights movement. The book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, discuss many topics regarding racism in the United States currently. One of the most interesting topics was the concept that racist is completely different from prejudice.
In this essay I will argue that the key to end racism is to understand race and ideology and how this two concepts relate to each other.
In order to be racist, then, one must have power over such institutions. Therefore, in amerikkka, minorities and people of color do not have the agency to commit acts of institutionalized racism. In this country, whites alone have the power to commit such acts on an institutionalized level. Furthermore, this system is based on maintaining skin privilege; so all white people, simply because of the color of their skin, benefit from this system at the expense of other races, and are therefore to a certain degree racist. This reality may be hard for many to swallow, but whites must be conscious of their active and passive participation in this country's institutionalized racism before they can attempt to effect any significant changes in the status quo.
Firstly, “the most lethal and toxic form of racism in America is committed daily by white people who consider themselves to be decent, honest, loving, and caring folks.” This statement is true and false. It is false to say for just the white people to wake up from this blindness. It is all ethnicities (sure, mostly white people) that need to wake up and see that this country - this world - has a problem with always turning a blind eye to social injustice. Plurality can never be possible if this continues to happen. Secondly, “prejudice and discrimination between people of color is NOT the same - it is fundamentally different from - prejudice and discrimination between white people and people of color.” This idea - to say that being prejudice and discriminating between people of color and between white people and people of color - is the same. Being prejudice and acting on that thought by discriminating is the same whether you’re considered “white”, “black”, “brown”, “yellow”, or “green” just because two people of opposing skin colors discriminate between each other doesn’t mean it’s worse or better than two people of the same skin colors. They are both morally and socially unjust. Just because the opposing skin colors have a long and bloody history doesn’t make the people with the same skin color any different; they are both going through prejudice and discrimination. That’s like saying the bully is allowed to get punched by the bullied in the face because he was bullied. It’s not ok because if the bullied were to have punched the bully that “bullied” has not become the bully and the bully has become the “bullied” all because the bullied stooped to the bully 's level by punching him/her back. The same concept is applied to the third and final topic; “racism is essentially a white problem.” To say that racism is a white problem is technically being prejudice against the white people,
Presently racism in the U.S. is presented through the media’s portrayal of the shooting of African Americans by police officers. This racism can be found in the racial bias that is obvious in media in the present day. In the video “Terence Crutcher’s Police Shooting & Racial Bias in America” by The Daily Show, Trevor Noah mentions that we are “ living in a society where racial divisions are so deeply baked into every part of society that we don’t even notice them anymore” (The Daily Show). By stating this Noah is showing that the racial bias that is shown in many news interviews and media forms is often overlooked and quite often already present. Another example of the racial bias that is set in most Americans can be found in the video “A White Audience is Left Speechless Racism in America” when a lady asks the audience to stand up if they would want to be treated the way African Americans are treated in society. The lady responds to her audiences lack of standing by stating the obvious fact they they are aware of the situation and they do not want that to happen to them, then she asks why they “are so willing to accept it or allow it to happen to others” (YouTube). This shows the fact that people are aware of the way that African Americans are being treated because of racial bias however because the way they are treated is so normalized people aren’t
Racism can take on many forms that plague the brain with irrationality that affects an individual’s thoughts and actions. Racism can be a physical form, through an external action, or can branch off into unethical thoughts. This is more known to be a discriminative thought, judging a person based on impressions. This social problem can also be ignored by the oblivious persons of the crowd. Many individuals speak out about how racial tension is long gone and forever forgotten ever since the first African-American was elected to be president in 2008, but this can be evidently proven false. Racial tension is still here to target the minorities in the forms of affirmative action and Ferguson conflicts.
Racism is one of the world’s major issues today. Many people are not aware of how much racism still exists in our schools workforces, and anywhere else where social lives are occurring. It is obvious that racism is bad as it was many decades ago but it sure has not gone away. Racism very much exists and it is about time that people need to start thinking about the instigations and solutions to this matter. Many people believe that it depends on if a person was brought into the world as a racist or not but that is not the case at all. In fact, an individual cannot be born a racist but only learn to become one as they grow from child to adulthood. Basic causes, mainstream, institutions, government, anti racism groups, and even some hidden events in Canada’s past are a few of the possible instigations and solutions to racism.