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Institutional Racism In America

Decent Essays

You’re trapped, in a room with no doors or windows, and the walls are closing in on you. Drowning endlessly in raging waves of faceless racism and never-­ending segregation. This is the everyday life of ‘racial minorities’ in the United States of America. Suffering at the hands of government figures, employment grillers, educational systems, law enforcement officers, and medical practices; this, is Institutional Racism. I wanted to discover the extent of which Institutional Racism exists, how Institutional Racism affects people of colour, and what the government is doing to prevent Institutional Racism. This is what I found.

Institutional Racism exists in employment, education, medical services and justice systems. The African-American population …show more content…

A cycle is evident in the effects of Institutional Racism; lack of education leads to no job or low income wages, which then proceeds to poor housing and poor medical care, which ultimately results in death. Richard Rothson of The American Prospect spoke on the situation occurring in Baltimore City. Recently the government adopted a restriction against black Americans purchasing houses in the same suburbs as white Americans. Federal housing subsidy policies going as far as to direct low income, black families to segregated neighbourhoods away from mid-class suburbs. When interviewed, Baltimore’s mayor claimed, “Blacks should be quarantined in isolated slums in order to reduce spread of communicable disease into white neighbourhoods, and to protect white values among white majority.” This set of circumstances is related to discrimination in political figures as well as no employment and lack of education. Failure in education, according to usnews.com, talks about how African-American children are at a disadvantage in school curriculums, leaving them improperly educated, which results in lack of employment. This revolves back to the housing crisis in Baltimore, furthermore providing the facts that when an African-American person isn’t hired from an employer, based on the idea of limited education factors, they are segregated to a low income wage community, which can often be proclaimed as …show more content…

Discrimination of protected groups (ie. African-Americans) from businesses is prohibited, which allows the prospect of equal rights in employment. The law reaches out to cover protected groups while in ‘public accommodations,’ for example; private, meaning retail businesses, and public, such as town squares. This is information from findlaw.com, informing the idea that no discriminatory actions should be acted upon due to race, colour, religion or disability. Jay Michaelson of The Daily Beast, apprises the ‘Disparate Impact’. The ‘Disparate Impact’ allows a person to challenge actions by organisations they believe are discriminatory towards race, colour, religion or sex. This extends not only to employment but also housing. This is a powerful tool for fighting this type of institutional racism that is often silent, systematic and insidious. ‘No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, colour, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.’ Quoted from findlaw.com Title Vl of the Civil Rights Act, talks mainly about equality in education. Most, nearly all, public and private schools and colleges abide under this law. This means that any educational system receiving federal financial assistance must run their

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