The Role Of Racism In America

Essay 1
Racism has been around for a long time. Sense the beginning, humans has radicalized people to feel superior to any others. Some might say that we have gotten away from radicalizing people after World War 2, but this is wrong. Radicalizing people can be seen in many ways, including the government, the Human Genome Project and education.
The government has radicalized people for many years. It plays a big role in segregation and the construction of race. It is seen in the constitution and many laws. In the text Defining Race and Ethnicity in America it states “As mandated by the constitution, the first administrative definition of race used by the United States took note of African slaves and American Indians subject to taxation who

were living under jurisdiction of the United States” (Doing Race 111). After slaves were freed, voting is one of the many ways it has constructed race. There is a law that was enforced after slavery. Citizenship was defined as white in the U.S. at that time so the Supreme Court made a law called the 3/5ths compromise. This law allowed African Americans to vote, but only three of every five votes mattered. Another government involvement with the construction of race is the Chinese Exclusion Act. Happening right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this law was passed to get rid of the Chinese and Japanese Americans. They were discriminated against, due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Even the families that have been here for generations, where moved to camps, and the condition of these camps where horrible. The Construction of race is also seen in jobs and agencies like the FHA or the GI bill. The GI bill is a governmental funded bill for the military and was created for white Americans to find jobs and go to school. The GI bill gave more to the White Americans than the African American, Japanese Americans, and Chinese Americans that served in the military. The FHA or Federal Housing Association supported segregation. It helped White people find better housing. This accrued during the white flight, where white people moved to the suburban areas leaving beat down houses to the other races.
The Construction of race would not be possible without DNA. The Human Genome project was a scientific study that focused on genetic variation and differences between groups. In the text A Post Genomic Moment, it states, “this focus had rekindled debates about the connection between genetic traits (at the level of DNA) and human racial difference” (Doing race 166). In the nineteenth century, human differences were widely linked with biological theories. One of these theories is the one-drop rule, which was used throughout history. This rule states that if one of your ancestors was from a different county, or if you have one drop of non-white blood, you are considered part of that race. In the second half of the twentieth century, many scientists tried to differentiate other races. Those studies have been used within the justice system to solve crimes or adjudicate claims towards certain natural origins. In that same text, A Post –Genome Moment, it states “in addition, human geneticist argue that the genome holds the key to medically significant biological differences among human racial and ethnic populations” (Doing Race 166-167). This idea has been the focus for many racial claims that have been used in the United States and often leads to slavery or killing off a race.
Stereotyping has played a key role in race.

It also was one of the main points within the classroom. Stereotyping is defined as a fixed idea or image about a race or thing that is oversimplified. For many years, people have to ask themselves who they are, whether it is their culture, family, or even where they come from, their race has been put into a category, which they cannot escape. In the text Race and Ethnicity as a Source of belongingness, it states “ Our identities locate us in social spaces and tell us where we belong” (Doing Race 384), but sometimes it is forced upon people due to stereotyping other races. In the education system, there is a question where the stereotype can be seen in the education system. I big part in negative stereotyping is within education. There is a Stereotype that African Americans are not as intelligent as Whites. This was the drive for many segregated schools. African Americans have fought a long time to be equal to whites. One of these fights was the Brown vs. Bored case in 1954, where the court declared the segregation of White Schools and Black schools to be unconstitutional. After this court, case there was still a war on education, but there were school finance reforms as an effort to help this new law against segregation. In the text Understanding the Achievement Gap, it states “Gaps in school, in access to qualify teachers, and in access to higher education were smaller in the 1970s than they had been before” (Doing Race 298). This means that higher education for African Americans were very slim and there was more segregation within schools after the Brown vs. Bored

case.
It has taken many years and many laws to stop segregation, but it is still happening within the justice systems and the education systems. Building this concept of racialization has a long past including the white flight, 3/5ths compromise, and the Chinese Inclusion Act. The concept of race is a concept that categorizing people due to their race, gender, class and sexuality. Race is the biggest one and white people adopted these concepts to segregate people and feel superior to others.