Essay on Racial Inequality in America

U.S. There are more people of color, whether black, hispanic, Indian, or any other color other than white in our overcrowded prisons today. They are in there because of their street crimes and because they are minorities who get significantly higher rates of penalization. Because of their financial situation, they do not have the ability to get able attorneys to represent them. Since they don’t have able representation, they plead the way they are told and end up in prison and remain there until their sentence ends. Their plight is one that does not have much assurance because they live in high crime areas, have low income or no jobs at all, and little or no education. Living in these areas and having no form of income with little education has labeled them. This predicament unfortunately leads to crime. The punishment for the crimes of the minority races are most of the time more harsh than for the white person. If a black person harmed a white person, the penalty would be harsher than if the black person harmed another

"Indifference is the very trait that makes the angels weep," said Dr. Cornel West, Princeton Professor and public intellectual, to a congregation of black folk at a NAACP conference several years ago. Indifference to the suffering of black folk, brown folk, and all of the other minorities in America is, indeed, injustice (West). It's wrong to idle in the wake of the pain and suffering of the economically disadvantaged, particularly when one has the means to agitate for social, political and economic change. And make no mistake about it; all people are suffering in this downed economy. But it must be pointed out that minorities are disproportionately suffering in these tough economic times.

(Newman and Pedulla, 2010). This number is twice as much as whites. Even if they had a job, many African Americans work for the low quality jobs. This means low levels of income relatively whites. And also nearly 50% of the wage differences between blacks and whites result from the racial discrimination. (Greene and Rogers, 1994). So, we can say that discrimination of wages between blacks and whites play a key role to determinate the income status of blacks. Also underemployment is serious as unemployment for many Americans especially for African Americans, because generally they work in that kind of positions. In March, almost 6 percent of workers had worked part time involuntary jobs. (Newman and Pedulla, 2010).

A positive role model for how to “rise through corporate meritocracy” is when they see someone they can relate to work the hard to reach their desired position. This role model had to beat out everyone, no matter the circumstances or backgrounds of the other employees. This person can teach those younger than him or her that hard work will take his or her mentees to the positions they would like to reach in Corporate America; being held back because of things someone cannot control such as race and gender is an excuse. Because of these and other reasons, changes in affirmative action are in order. White people’s views are not all their fault. There are a number of companies that hired minority workers just because the businesses needed to be more diverse. These workers were not hired because they were qualified. Seeing this happen numerous of times, it makes sense why Whites feel that minorities do not deserve to be beneficiaries of affirmative action. Minority workers do not work hard for the positions they have while Whites do. It is not fair in their eyes. That is why many Whites have expressed anger or disapproval of affirmative action programs in the workplace. “More than 40% of the total sample of non-Southern whites, or nearly one in every two, expresses anger toward affirmative action…Some 98% of Southerners-nearly all-are resentful toward affirmative action” (Knight, et al., 1997). With numbers like these,

So many stories across the United States similar to this that at times is hard to prove due to privacy and no transparency. Why is it such a big issue on why a company would want to behave in this manner and not being fair? Blacks are subjected more to hostile work environments than whites and have to work much harder to prove they are qualified for the job than whites. Title VII of the Civils Rights Act of 1964 is supposed to protect the African Americans in the workplace, but for some companies it really does not mean anything and in most cases will try to work around it and get away with it. There are lawsuits that will never make it due to shortage of funds to proceed on making the

Some people define race as if it is something solid or concrete, but what they don’t see is that it is a “social fabrication”(Mathew Desmond, Mustafa Emibayer,2009;2). Race is based on the difference in physical appearance which is determined, for example, by the most apparent trait; skin color. Inequality emerges when people living, whether on the same sovereign terrain or across continents, are not treated with the same amount of respect and not given the chance to engage their rights in a free and fair manner. Race and inequality are often linked together because of the “issues that began in the 1800s”(NFB;Journey to Justice;2000) such as racial segregation. Over the years issues of race and inequality have

Throughout the history of the country, America has been considered a fairly racist union. From the workplaces to the society, as an Asian, I felt there's a strong barrier between white and black people, although I felt a little bit of racial among us. In this essay, I will talk about the major racial issue of this country through out my experiences.

To make racial inequalities a public issue I will write a blog that explains the effect on people's lives that it can cause and who it mainly affects..In my blog it will also tell the history and where racial inequalities came from and why it affects minorities.I will also interview people that know a lot about racial inequalities and people that lives have been ruin by it

As far as the Civil Rights Acts go, there have been improvements, but there is still a lot of discrimination and economic inequality among minorities in the United States. The Civil Rights Acts were set out to rid discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or nationality. There still remains a lot of discrimination based on these things. In the study, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” they were acquiring proof of the inequality in America. Their studies showed that there is pre-emptive judgment against certain types of people when it comes to employing people. Someone can be exactly like someone else as far as college careers and work experience go, but depending on that they look like or what their names suggest, they may or may not have an opportunity to get a certain job. Based on the findings of the authors, they found that the results indicated, “for two identical individuals engaging in an identical job search, the one with an African-American name would receive fewer interviews” (The American Economic Review, 1006). If the United States was truly equal with respect to giving job positions, employers

Racial differences in the work place is one of the biggest examples of being denied upward mobility. Racial inequality in the workforce can take two forms: access and treatment (Cunningham & Sagas, 2004). Any person or group of people are sometimes denied access to a job because of their race. Sometimes certain races are denied to a specific profession as a whole. They also may sometimes get the job but treated poorly and not allowed to succeed and achieve upward mobility. Access discrimination is somebody treated differently once they get the job and not given adequate supplies, guidance, or opportunities to succeed and gain upward mobility (Cunningham & Sagas, 2004). If somebody is denied access to a job or even get the job but not allowed

Although slavery was ultimately outlawed and laws prohibiting discrimination against African-Americans passed, racism against this community remains and is manifested in more subtle ways today.1 For example, the Washington, DC, Fair Employment Practices Commission has found that blacks face discrimination in one out of every five job interviews. The American Sociological Association notes that, “today employers use different phases of the hiring

Prejudice attitudes have existed in corporate America prior to and ever since the first corporation began. As businesses develop with an increase in diversity, bigotry continues to evolve with older professionals who don’t see minorities as equals. Several significant events in history such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Act suggest a decrease in overt racism in the workplace. However, it is still prevalent in many parts of the country especially in the corporate world. In today’s society, prejudice attitudes and racism is often seen in company’s lack of representation of minority men and women. In other words, it is still difficult for minorities such as African Americans to escape the unfortunate reality that bias exist against them

Many blacks say that they do not want any help from the government in obtaining and keeping a job. Pride in a job is important to just about everybody, and it is much preferred to feel that a success in life has been earned because of qualifications and hard work. In many cases, though, minorities are not paid as well or aren't hired as often as their white colleagues, and this is a powerful motivation to accept a job that you may have gotten over somebody else because of your race. As a side consequence to this, racial tensions build in an affirmative action workplace. This isn't the fault of the employer or the employee, but instead of the system. A study conducted among white students last year at the University of

Is Racism still an issue in the United States? It was believed by most Americans that it was decreasing until 2008. The country is slowly becoming more diverse with a black president and black attorney general. Even though the country is becoming more diverse it does not mean that others will agree with it. In 2008, President Barack Obama was elected into the office. This caused a lot of positivity in the minority group while it also caused the negativity for those that were against him going into office. In the most recent decade, it seems as if racism is getting worse. “Racism is the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributed to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superior to others,”

Racial inequality is perpetuated by inherent bias, and continues to influence the socioeconomic stance of blacks and whites, even in present day society. The typical result of racial inequality is the advancement of white people while black people are hindered by obstacles not encountered by privileged white people. Even though slavery and racial inequality supposedly ended years ago, racial discrimination is still prevalent. Due to the balance of power that whites, as the former oppressors, are used to, it is difficult for whites to ignore their inherent bias and accept blacks as equals. The commonness of this social hierarchy furthers the idea that people find discomfort in uniting with people who do not assimilate to their interests and beliefs.