Racism In America Essay

Racism is a huge problem, especially here in the United States. The United States has come a long was, but there is no doubt that there is much more progress to be made. People seem to follow the patterns of others and fall in to the same issues. It is important that the cycle breaks and individual learn to be independent and speak their own minds instead of following the thoughts and beliefs of others. Until the chains are broken and people fall out of this endless loop, racism will continue to be a major issue.

Over the years, the face of racism has taken on many forms. In present day America, racism is a very taboo subject. It a common view that racism is not a big issue anymore, given the large strides that we, as a country have made towards equality. However, the inequalities that still exist between races point to a different situation. Instead of the blatantly discriminatory acts that our nation has witnessed in the past, modern racism practices are more covert and seemingly nonracial, making this kind of discrimination seem more acceptable and politically correct. The Civil Rights Movement forced society to implement a new, subtler way to perpetuate racial inequality. In Racism Without Racists, Bonilla-Silva describes the justification

Racism is an ideology that is based on the principle that human beings can be subdivided and ranked into categories as being inferior or superior. It’s worth mentioning that in recent years the concept or notion of racism has changed. Racism in the post-racial twenty-first century is now marked by subtlety that discriminates against individuals through unnoticeable or seemingly passive methods. Although overt racism has decreased since the 1960s, it has been supplemented by what is called colorblind racism,” which refers to “contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics” (p. 455-456).

“E Pluribus Unum”, “Out of Many, One”; Originally used to suggest that out of many colonies or states shall emerge a single unified nation, but over the years it has become the melting pot of the many people, races, religions, cultures and ancestries that have come together to form a unified whole, and even though America prides itself on being this melting pot racism is still alive and well today. America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, the country that calls to so many; calling to them with the promise of freedom and prosperity, to live their lives as they see fit. As stated in the National Anthem, America is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." America is the country where dreams can come true. So if America has

Imagine. It’s a dark February night in Miami. You step out to your local convenience store to grab a couple of snacks. On your way home, you realize someone is following you. After you confront the person, a scuffle breaks out, and it results in your parents having to bury you at a cemetery. This was the unfortunate story of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. Martin was killed walking home from the local convenience store only armed with a bag of skittles and an iced tea. After being followed George Zimmerman, a local neighbourhood watch volunteer, Martin decided to confront Zimmerman. The end result leaving Trayvon Martin dead and George Zimmerman a free man. The story of Trayvon Martin proves the point that racism will is still alive and

American society likes to believe that race relations in our country are no longer strained. We do not want to hear about the need for affirmative action or about the growing numbers of white supremacist groups. In order to appease our collective conscious, we put aside the disturbing fact that racism is alive and well in the great U.S.A. It hides in the workplace, it subtly shows its ugly face in the media, and it affects the education of minority students nationwide. In the following excerpts from an interview with a middle class African American male, the reader will find strong evidence that race plays a major role in determining the type and quality of education a student receives.

Although racism has changed over time these past 50 years, racism in many ways still exists. Everybody has their own opinion and those opinions are influenced by the public and the media. In some way,

"The legacy of past racism directed at blacks in the United States is more like a bacillus that we have failed to destroy, a live germ that not only continues to make some of us ill but retains the capacity to generate new strains of a disease for which we have no certain cure." - Stanford Historian George Frederickson.

The American past, with all its racial discontent-of Native American; of the enslavement of Africans; of segregation based on culture and origins; of anti-Semitism, anti-Africanism and discrimination - underlines every conceivable interpretation of the violent fury periodically seen in our larger cities. To say that we are victimized by history-that is, both by the cards dealt by history and by an ignorance of historical context-means that we are subject to misunderstanding the nature of the disillusionment, anger, and hoplessness that exist in our country. I do not see complete, destructive form of nihilism, (Asante2003)

Throughout this course we have learned about many things, one in particular would be Racism. We have learned about many different types of racism along with examples of racism. Before I go into specific examples of racism that I have learn about in this class, I will first define and explain the differences between racism, prejudice or also known as bias, discrimination, race, and racist so there 's a clear understanding of why I picked the specific examples. The definition of racism that we learned in class would be an “Institutionalized system with disproportionate unjust outcomes for a particular race”. Prejudice or also known as bias was defined as “A negative feeling, opinion, or attitude toward a certain category or people” this would be an feeling with no action acted upon, where discrimination is defined as “Action or inaction toward a category of people” which would be acting on the negative feelings or opinions of a certain group. The definition for race is a “Social construct, but a lived reality” while a racist is “Discrimination based on the category of race”. (Disadvantage privilege notes, 2016)

Adolf Hitler, often touted a psychopath for his vile hatred and extermination of Jewish and other non-Aryan persons, possessed an incredible genius for rallying his German compatriots to war, nationalism, and acquiescence of mass murders. Rallying Germans to action required conditioning via propaganda. Propaganda in all forms of media helped radically shift the German perspective, not only to identifying themselves as superior to all other races, but also to viewing non-Germans and non-Eastern Europeans in subhuman ways with devastating results. While America has done away with distinct, polarizing forms of racial propaganda in its seedy history of racial oppression, more subtle yet equally damaging forms of propaganda have taken its place. American media is complicit in continuing the ideology of race-based “goodness,” intelligence, criminality, and superiority, even though many experts say otherwise, in what they currently term as America’s post-racial era. Despite the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, a post-racial America has never existed due to the fundamental and persistent criminalization of non-whites in media and utilization of propaganda in media to perpetuate white supremacy.

Throughout history in America there has always been the idea of racism. When Americans think of racism, they usually think of slavery and that racism is no longer a problem in America. However, this is not the case. Racism is still very apparent in America. It is true that since the end of slavery, the U.S. has made great strides towards becoming a less racist country. In reality, racism will never be extinct. In today’s society, all American citizens of all races have the same rights as one another, yet there is still racism. Racism can be linked directly to stereotypical mindsets of certain groups of people. It is human nature to make conclusions about other people, this is what leads to racism. Today’s racism is not limited to whites

Scientific racism, in the final analysis is in the guise of scientific research to change to support racism and its world view, the meaning of its existence is actually under the banner of the name of the noble science research to be even handed more comprehensive more national let people's consciousness to self own race and other races of different ("ReduceTheBurden.org." ReduceTheBurdenorg. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2016.)

We live in a country where diversity is all around us. We choose if we accept diversity in our lives. Some people embrace a diverse life while others want to only associate with people who are like themselves. Whether people lead a diverse life is not the problem, the real issue is how we treat those that are different from ourselves.

Literature is a compilation of written works, or art used to express opinions and emotions, it is used to describe anything from creative writing to more technical or scientific works. The term is most commonly used to refer to works of the creative imagination, including works of poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction (“Literature”). Literature represents a language, people, culture and tradition, and it is more important than just a historical and cultural artifacts (“Literature”).We learn through books, we enjoy the comedies and the tragedies of poems, stories, and plays. We may even grow and evolve literature. Literature is a form of art, where an artist expresses themselves through words and the creation of a story. The meaning of a literary piece may be discovered by interpreting what the author says and how they evoke it, which has an effect in each individual interpretation of the work (“Literature”). It could be used to express someone’s emotions toward specific topics happening in our world today or share information on something that happened many years ago. We are exposed to literature since before we are even born, and it’s something that carries on with us for the rest of our lives. I think literature is extremely important because it is something that allows you to express yourself freely without being judged. Often times, anecdotes in literature are so relatable to current events in your life at the time that it might give you the strength