Are Millennials Less Racist Than Past Generations?

The idea of racism has evolved and has become less prevalent throughout the last century. Schools and public areas are unsegregated, voting rights, racial slurs being considered as unacceptable behavior etc. American sociologist and race theorist, Howard Winant states that’s “The ensuing approaches increased recognition of racial injustice and inequality, but did not overcome the discriminatory processes” (Winant,2000)Although the United states has come a long way to try to end racism, one cannot ignore the fact that it still exists. It is something that may seem invisible in society, but everybody knows that it still thrives and that it’s racial attitudes affect the way our society functions. One of these invisible forms of

“Racism still occupies the throne of our nation,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. pronounced just before his assassination. Almost fifty years later, we are still faced with the same unchanged threat that makes the words of Dr. King true. As individuals, communities, and a proud nation we have made an everlasting fingerprint for the children of our future, yet we lack the strength of acknowledgment to alter the course of racial discrimination and conquer prejudice. Has the formation of structural discrimination rooted itself too deeply into our subconscious that hope for rehabilitation seems unattainable? As a nation, we voted a man with a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya as the first multiracial President of the United States. Racism has not been eradicated because of the racial background of President Barrack Obama and we have not accomplished victory because of his African decent because prejudice has been too deeply fixed within our society. Social circumstance and the insinuation of race continue to change over time, precisely because race has become a social construct that serves political ends. The prior and present leaders of our nation organize, generate, and endorse the laws and public policy that ensure racism continues to maintain itself against people of color. Our historically racist foundation, the rising effects of structural discrimination, and the view of modernized racism all actively participate in shaping our structural

Throughout the history of the United States, multitudes of social issues arise, fall, and repeat. In the modern day United States, many social issues are currently at hand including abortion, gender pay differences, the minimum wage, gun violence, police brutality, and seemingly excessive college tuition raises, to name a few. One issue that has been brought back to light within the last few years is racism. Many different headlines, buzzwords, and slogans shoot through media outlets including “Systematic Racism” (Bandler, 2016), “Black Lives Matter” (Black Lives Matter, n.d.), “Institutional Racism” (Michaelson, 2015), the list goes on. Many millennials and middle-aged workers are crying out in support and against these claims, calling this a social problem in an effort to show abnormality in the status quo (Davis-Sowers, 2016), as this condition has negative attributes related to individuals or the world that they live in (Leon-Guerrero).

For over a century, the topic of racial equality has been one that has resulted in much discord, and even a war. The African Americans, one of the most persecuted races in America, were forced to work as slaves and were repeatedly separated from the white people because they had a different skin color. After much effort, slavery was outlawed after the Civil War by the Emancipation Proclamation, but segregation still lived on. Blacks continued to be singled out and given unequal rights, such as not being allowed to attend the same school or drink from the same water fountain as a white person. This was soon prohibited, but not completely abolished, after Martin Luther King Jr. led non violent direct action, such as marches and protests, to demonstrate to the government

The oppression of African Americans is a part of the foundation that the United States was built upon. From the time of the Jim Crow laws that mandated the separation of whites and African Americans, to the present day where many institutions make decisions based on race, marginalization of African Americans has been ingrained into society. The Jim Crow laws claimed to make everyone equal, but instead it legally separated whites and African Americans by having establishments for whites only and establishments for African Americans only. Although there are not laws enforcing African Americans to be treated differently from the majority group anymore, African Americans have been continuously marginalized even after abolishing the Jim Crow Laws with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Racism in a pre-Civil Right Era was violent, abhorrently blatant, and prevalent to a fault. Post Jim-Crow, racism has diminished so much so that it barely exists; or so society likes to believe. In actuality, racism has been transformed under a different lens where racism still stands as the structures and functions of American society but have been so normalized and legalized that white Americans feel as the country has progressed in terms of racism. This lens, one that Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has defined as colorblind in his book Racism without Racists, explain how racism still dictate how people of color live and suffer in contrast to their white American counterparts despite the racial “progress” that society so desperately want to believe. Colorblind racism can be defined as the belief or behavior that racism no longer exists at all or like it once did in the past by disregarding how race plays a role in minorities lives and thus continuing to prop up the same racist structures and foundations that was at play decades ago before the alleged “progress” of the post civil rights era. What makes colorblind ideology a problem at its basis is held within the fact that white Americans know that race exists yet they both subconsciously and willfully ignore how the sociopolitical and economic aspects of the nation work to keep white Americans ahead while minorities struggle to survive in a world that essentially ignores them. A prime example of colorblind racism in a modern

Throughout the history of the United States, equality has never been fully reached. The rights of minorities and people of color have been challenged countlessly even to this day. Racism has been around since the dawn of man, though the new nation was created as the land of the free, many were deprived of their liberties in the founding of the United States. The United States is a land of on going innovations and improvement, from technology to transportation and health. Although the nation is moving forward in many different fields, racism and the discrimination of minorities and blacks has been one

In recent years, people have known that racial discrimination issues are not as harsh as it was long time ago. However, it has not been totally eliminated. Racism is a smoldering fire in our society, and there are unsympathetic people still believe that judging others by their skins is naturally. Even though many people are fighting for equal racial rights, many African Americans are losing their hope.

“Racism is alive and well.” That is a saying I have heard inside my household many times. As a child, I never really knew what racism was. I was only taught to not, “judge a book by its cover.” In today’s society, I think it is very hard for children to say the same thing that I can. In a modern - day child’s upbringing, stereotypes have been created, so that every time an African - American man is threatened, injured, or killed by a white police officer, that officer is not doing his job, he is being a racist. If an African - American man is walking down the street in baggy clothing, with his hood up, and his hands in his pockets, he's not on his way home, people think he's up to no good. When a person who is Muslim is in line at an airport, and by chance a metal detector goes off, they didn't forget to take their wedding ring off, people think they have the intent to hurt people. In everyday life, so many horrible assumptions are made based off of the color of someone’s skin, what they are wearing, or their personal beliefs. However, the real question is: have these assumptions become worse over time because people are more aware of racism, or have we progressed, but just not enough?

Throughout Dr. Steven Spencer’s lecture, the main question he addressed was whether racism is changeable or fixed. I learned that the difference between these two concepts refers to the belief in either the entity theory (fixed) or the incremental theory (changeable). Based on the three studies Dr. Steven discussed, I was surprised to learn that both white people and black people view racism as unchangeable. Racism in society can be changed, although most believe prejudice is fixed and that it can only be hidden. The second idea he analyzed was how prevalent prejudice is. White people and black people, unlike their view on how changeable it is, differed in their view of the prevalence of racism. Most white people see bigotry like seeing a

Racism (n): the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other race (Wordnet search, 1), a controversial topic in today’s society, a subject that many people try to sweep under the rug, but yet a detrimental problem that has been present in America since the colonial era. Will this dilemma come to a halt? Can all Americans see each other as equals despite their skin color and nationality; and what role has it played in past generations versus today’s generations and how will it affect our future? Has this on going way of thinking gotten better or worse? These are questions raised when many think about the subject; especially members of American ethnic groups and backgrounds, because

There is instructive information that Millennials cannot afford to be color-blind about race. From birth, all people are educated to believe in happy endings. A large number of youths view racism as an issue that will or has already been worked out. When Barack Obama became our first black president, the United States reached a new breakthrough. This change must happen through the citizens or the government officials. The majority of racial improvement is paired with some type of defiance. This confrontation can be unassertive, progressive, or even terribly fierce. Ninety-one percent of 14-24 year olds believe in racial equality. Seventy-two percent of respondents stated their generation believed in equality exceeding than mature generations.

A new generation means new technology, new fashion trends, and even new slang or words come out every so often, but one thing that has stayed continuous throughout history is racism. Whether you have seen it, heard it, or even have had firsthand experience with it, racism is practically everywhere. Over the years the definition of racism has evolved, but a standard idea of it would be a, “prejudice that asserts that members of one race are inferior to another, thus making them less worthy of fair treatment.” (Carl, p. 41) Sadly, racism has become a social norm for this generation. Whether it is intentional or not, it occurs daily and is a huge reoccurring problem. Racism not only targets and affects African Americans, but it also occurs to

Racial conflict has existed for centuries in the Unites States. It is the idea that one race is superior to another race. The advantages range from better healthcare, schooling, better jobs, and even longer life

the Modern Racism Scale is intended to measure a dimension of the cognitive component of racial attitudes / it therefore asks subjects or survey respondents to agree or disagree with a set of beliefs that whites may or may not have about blacks / it distinguishes this set of beliefs from another set of beliefs called old-fashioned racism / according to the theory, both cognitive belief systems are influenced by the affective component of attitudes toward black Americans as well as by other beliefs and values and by the historical context specific to the form of racism