21st Century Racism

While coming up with a topic for this paper, one of my questions dealt with war and cultural groups. I will be the first to admit, Racism was the last thing on my mind. The original question being, “How does war affect a Social Culture and how does it stand today?” When I started thinking about Cultures that had been so deeply affected by war, one of the first that came to mind were the Japanese in World War II. Then I recalled what one person had told me of their younger days at college, when they were attending school. Their name will remain anonymous; I do not want to make the victim’s name public as it has a very personal nature.

If one were to drive down any random road in South Carolina today, they might spot a Confederate Flag hanging proudly from a building or a house or even a national monument. The ones who support the display of this flag say that it is more to do with cultural history than racism, however, the history that this flag represents is what motivated Dylann Roof to kill nine innocent people in a South Carolina church in 2015. In this day and age, how did something like the Charleston church shooting massacre occur? This essay will explain how racism, although not as common as it was in the past, still exists today and how this racism is connected to the story of Dylann Roof. Although certain racist laws, such as Jim

Imagine living in a world where you are harassed because of your skin color. Imagine knowing that is all you can look forward to. That is all your children and grandchildren can look forward to. Discrimination has been around for a long time, even before prehistory. Someone always thinks that they are better than others because of their skin color, sex, race, etc. Social classes and slavery are just two examples of discrimination. Even though our Constitution is based on freedom, our own Constitution allowed for discrimination of African Americans for around 100 years. It allowed White people to harass Black people. If we base our country on giving freedom to everybody, shouldn?t it include everyone? Discrimination against Blacks was

Racism is the trend of thought, or way of thinking, which attaches great importance to the notion of the existence of separate human races and superiority of races that are usually associated with inherited physical characteristics or cultural events. Racism is not a scientific theory, but a set of preconceived opinions they value the biological differences between humans, attributing superiority to some according to racial roots. Even in such ethnically diverse country as the United States, racism continues evident against people of different ethnic traits and skin color. According to Steinberg (Steinberg, 1995), racial discrimination has been the most important cause of inequality between whites and blacks in the U.S. Because of that, minorities in American society have been fighting over years for equal rights and respect, starting with the civil rights movement in 1960s. Also, public policies implemented since 1964 in the United States have been instrumental in reducing economic inequality between blacks and whites, such as the affirmative action, a federal program that tries to include minority groups by providing jobs and educational opportunities (Taylor, 1994). From this perspective, does racism still play a dominant role in American values and American society? If so, what are the consequences of this racism that still remain in American society? What is the impact of the Barack Obama presidency on the unending fight against racism in this country?

Racism has been a terrible problem in American society for hundreds of years. Racism issues are not limited to one specific race, but include all races. It is the responsibility of the people of this nation to address racism and learn to accept and embrace each other for our differences, and allow this great nation to become even more united for our sake and the sake of future generations. To eliminate racism it is imperative to know first, where racism started and how it has developed, why it continues to be present in our nation today, and what we must do as a people to overcome this major problem.

Discrimination, the unjust treatment of different groups of people, has been an issue in the United States of America for too long. It has turned people against one another one to many times, and for what? They did it because they were not able to see that the person next to them, regardless of race, religion, or sex was still just a human no different than themselves. This lead to violence between people of different races, it was the white man against the black man. All of the violence, blood shed, and hate was self justified because they thought what they were doing would lead to a better future for them as well as future generations. During this time period, shortly after african americans gained their freedom and rights, many people formed groups with nothing but hatred in their hearts. This was to go on to become one of the darkest time periods in American history.

On the heels of the recently concluded presidential election our nation has seen a staggering increase in hate crimes. The re emergence of oppressive practices, emboldened violence, and blatant bias against segments of the population threatens the fundamental constitutional premise that guarantees freedom, liberty, and justice for all.

Discrimination occurs to many different types of people but racial discrimination seems to occur more to these specific individuals which in America it appears to be that the groups most discriminated against are African Americans and Hispanics. America has grown into a place where certain events are associated with these groups. Many people simply assume that African Americans are associated with crime and that all hispanics are illegal. This is called prejudice. People who assume these things about an entire group of people are the root

Racial discrimination has been a huge problem since the late 1800s and even today. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation that was supposed to abolish slavery and segregation in the north and south. Abraham Lincoln then signed the Thirteenth Amendment also trying to abolish slavery. After these were passed slavery turned into what is known as segregation and soon enough racism formed even more then what it already has in the

Race and racism in United States of America have been the pre-dominant social issues since the American colonies were being originated. When racism began, it was initially due to religious reasons but later it became an issue concerning economic and political issues. The American society completely denied to accept that everyone were equal under law and it became difficult to accept the lower social class (especially the slaves) for what they were and started discriminating their freedom by showing racism.

Racism is a plague spreading through the world. Over a million people have died due to lynching, burnings, stabbings, and beatings. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the dangers of racism and discrimination and the pain they cause, while offering solutions to help counteract them.

After living in a place like Bend Oregon for 18 years I haven’t ever noticed a difference between blacks and whites. Bend has been said to be “one of the whitest places to live”, yet I never viewed a city by its race. Being racist to me meant that it was the whites who had a problem with the blacks and whites didn’t want anything to do with blacks. I hadn’t actually seen racism in action from anyone here. Now, after watching the film Crash and reading the essays “Blinded by the White: Crime, Race and Denial at Columbine High” written by Tim Wise and “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” written by McIntosh, my understanding of race, diversity, and communications have changed.

Racism has been an ongoing social justice issue for decades, and we seem to always fail to make it stop. According to Dummett (as cited in Fernando, 1984), racism is the behaviour and attitude that emerges from our beliefs that certain people are different from us. These differences are mainly based on race, where people come from, physical characteristics, such as colour and hair type or behavioural characteristics, and that people categorized must be treated differently based on their needs, capabilities and rights. Usually there is one dominant and superior group and a few inferior groups (Dummett, as cited in Fernando, 1984). Coates and Morrison (2011) suggests that what we distinguish as real and true may not always be real and that things may not always be as it seems. Coates and Morrison (2011) also states that we live in a racial matrix, where we have this illusion of reality and that differences associated with racial status and hierarchies are perceived as the norm in society and this perception of reality is not easy to get rid of. There are four types of racism; subtle racism, colorism, internalized racism and reverse racism (Nittle, 2016). Racism can be explicit, but it can also be very subtle and covert, which is a huge problem, as most people do not even notice it and they do not realize that it happens on a day-to-day basis (Coates and Morrison, 2011). Racism is not only one problem or concern, as it is brings along a variety of other problems and is compiled

Racism has become a highly ambiguous term that includes a plethora of meanings. It has even been redesignated as ‘new’ racism, a notion coined by Martin Barker in 1981. This novel form of racism targets various cultural practices that exclude minorities, rather than merely focusing on biological determiners or white superiority. Or, as Kryzanowski & Wodak (2017) put it:

As the 2008 presidential election proceeded to break racial barriers in America, many people have come to believe that racism in America no longer exists since we now have a Black president. However, This could not be anything further from the truth. When many people think of racism, they think of blunt discriminatory actions made against people of color. Thoughts of segregation and the Ku Klux Klan probably come to mind when people envision what racism may look like. Since many of this is now considered illegal or less evident in today’s society, many people may believe that racism is no longer a major issue. Racism in today’s society, however, is constructed differently. Robert M. Entman notes that American society has changed from “traditional to modern racism” (206). Modern racism is more complex within our political and social systems. So how does racism still exist you ask? Racism still exists in our society because minorities remain to be the largest group of people who are unemployed, disadvantaged in their ability to obtain a decent education, and misrepresented by the media.