Black Reconstruction

Rosa Parks once said “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and hopefully, we shall overcome.” Racism is a struggle that, to this day, has continued to be a major issue. The color of someone’s skin alters how a person is perceived by society as a whole. Race is a social construct created by humans to categorize the world. (Sullivan 2) The outlook on racism varies from community to community, family to family, and even person to person. Skin color can alter all aspects of an individual’s life, because unlike inner differences and beliefs, skin color is a physical appearance. Social status, perceptions, roles, occupation are just a few of the characteristics of life which can be affected simply by a person’s physical differences. Not long ago somebody could even be discriminated against and their basic rights and freedoms could be altered based on their appearance. Many people believe that the United States is a colorblind nation or is tolerant of people 's race. Racism may go unnoticed by those who believe that it is a thing of the past, but to the people who are directly impacted by racism, it continues to be play a major role in today’s society.

We have all sat through multiple history classes and learned about slavery, segregation, and the Civil War. We have all seen brutal movies and presentations based on racial injustices and the lack of equality. So often, we forget that these issues are still so present in our community. Slavery is illegal in the United States but other forms of racial profiling, insensitivity, and racism continue to be a recurring social barrier. Racism is still very much alive. The United States is “equal” yet somehow segregated. There isn’t quite a quick fix to this problem. Clearly, this has been an ongoing issue and requires major progression in our personal global

History helps shape the future and what we can learn from it to make sure that we do not repeat the same mistakes. During Reconstruction, the country was trying to make amends after the war was over. The country needed to find a way to mend a broken nation because it was divided. The main issue during reconstruction was the status of African Americans because they wanted their civil rights, but could not get that. The question that needs to be answered is: who did the most to aid the cause of African American during Reconstruction, and why? Many organizations and people helped African Americans, but the Freedman’s Bureau did the most.

When white Americans choose to self-educate about systemic racism they can become allies in the fight to dismantle racist structures in our society. Systemic racism is a theory that “takes a look at how individual, structural, and institutional forms of racism intersect, overlap, and create a deep-rooted form of prejudice and discrimination that advantages a cultural group at the expense of others in all institutions of a society - economics, political representation, the criminal justice system, employment, and many others.” (Luther College 2015). This includes discrimination affecting credit, schooling, justice, residential location, etc. It can be eradicated in the next century, but not without white people acknowledging that it is a real issue that cost lives. It is not the duty of the oppressed to make a liberty sales pitch to their oppressors. However, it is the responsibility of those benefiting from the oppression of others to become educated, listen, and use their privilege to combat injustice. Asian, Latino, Black, and First Nations people respectively do not experience white supremacy in the same ways. Throughout this essay I will focus on the systemic racism targeted at Black people, using the term “People of Color”, coined by Black Feminists in the 1970s, abbreviated to PoC, to refer to them.

In today’s day and age, the United States of America is seen of as the land where every human being is treated fairly. However, it was not always like this and America was considered to be one of the most racist countries in the world up until the 1980’s. From 1885 to 1968, when the Jim Crow laws were in place, black people were segregated from whites and were treated like second class citizens. However, black people fought for equality all throughout the Jim Crow era and finally succeeded after the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Blacks in the American South sought to improve their lives by supporting and helping white people that had helped them before, by joining the American military, and by protesting against segregation and their rights.

While the world continues to sway between left and right – the message and humanity gets lost in politics. The world needs a change of consciousness from the current status quo of white privilege and continuation of colonisation to a more measured return to morals and value systems based on decency and protecting the vulnerable. The height of white privilege is being able to ignore president trump’s white supremacy, because it is of no threat to white people, but it is a threat to many other Americans.

Over the past few years in this country, the issues of race relations has become a large problem. The color gap between colored and white people is the largest since before the civil rights movement. The color gap has increased by instances of police brutality and police officers killing colored citizens. The seemingly never ending stories of police brutality sparked the Black Lives Matter movement which gained popularity over time. The color gap between Black Lives Matter supporters and those who respect the law has increased because of the media, the use of the N-word, and police brutality. These three examples are catalysts for the color gap which we must work to unite the country as a whole.

Racism and race are topics that regularly occupy our social media and news feeds. Even though, race is a social and abstract concept, it affects a wide variety of individuals in profound ways. After viewing the films on the Greensboro Massacre, my heart felt full of sorrow and dismay. A quote by former president Lyndon B. Johnson recurred through my mind “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact”. Racism and race are tightly intertwined concepts, rooted in misconceptions regarding biology and genetic factors. The United States is a color-coded society; moreover, our society prefers to classify individuals and put people into a box that gives them a label. Thus, the labels that are enforced upon us assist in reinforcing racism and racist ideologies. Due to all aspects of American life being shaped to some degree by race, racism will always exist. Racism will not end until we acknowledge ethnic and racial identities, dismantle the

Our nation struggles with many things, including internal strife as well as external physical brawls. America is known for its ever increasing debt and housing many struggling Americans. However, there is one thing we persistently fail to change: racial injustice. Try as we might, age old sentiments have ingrained themselves into the minds of many, preventing the change we require. It is a war we have fought for many centuries, hoping to see a change that has yet to occur. As time has gone on, some ideas have never left despite the progress towards moral justice.

Many people believe that racism in America is an issue of the past. Slavery has been abolished, segregation is no longer prevalent, and the last president of the United States was African American. While these facts prove that the U.S. has come a long way since the development of Jim Crow Laws and the ⅗ Compromise, racism has still not been defeated. In the past, America’s political system made it possible for racism and slavery to thrive. Today, America does not allow for segregation or discrimination, politically speaking. Socially speaking, however, racism can be found everywhere. While it is evident that drastic change has occurred in the American society over the last century, based on recent events and trends, as well as those of

The two assigned chapters demonstrate how the challenges our nation falsifying the colorblind belief in a post-racial disposition. True racial integration is an ongoing dream that is hindered by arenas in the domain of intimate relations, sports world, military, and so on. For instance, the political sphere establishes the racialized voting patterns and whiteness which significantly persists to obstruct race relations like that of White voting blocs with previous evidence support for politicians of their race. Struggles continue to exist in numerous institutions thwart the progress in America, regardless of ever-changing racial identities. Ultimately, this history of inequality has long contributed to opposition playing against minorities today.

American society likes to believe that race relations in our country no longer exist. We do not want to hear about the need for favorable action or about the growing numbers of white supremacist groups. In order to settle our collective conscious, we put aside the disturbing fact that racism is alive. It hides everywhere in the media, the workplace, and it heavily impacts the education of minority students nationwide.

In the pursuit of a goal by a minority being oppressed by the majority, the only way to obtain results is through utter unity of the people affected by oppression. Through the rise of the United States, the hate towards the non white races has always veered it ugly head. No matter how far the country rises through the ranks of supremacy over the rest of the world, it continues to fail to fix the problem of inequality deeply rooted in its society. The continuous failure forced the non white races to take extreme actions against the government in order to gain the equality that they believe is their due rights. The pursuit for utter equality for all people, no matter their specifications, has led to bloodshed but, using the power and influence of utter unity, change in society over the lifetime of the United States. From peaceful protest to full out scrimmages with the government, people that seek full equality have tried a multitude of rebellious strategies in order to work towards the goal. Every major non white racial group have tried to achieve the goal of equality with methods, some similar to each other while others were unorthodox. Though every racial group had their personal goals, many of these goals were very similar. The search for equality by the people of the United States is highlighted by the amount of effort and sacrifice given in its pursuit.

The United States of America has long been a country divided by race. Hate has pervaded her existence since her conception, and now today’s society is forced to deal with those issues. Minorities have suffered at the hands of the white male majority for centuries as the social activities of the old war were brought to the new colonies, only to ferment and continue to affect the lives of all who lived within her borders. There is no doubting that this continued discrimination is a problem; however, the question arises with how to deal with it. Legislation has been passed to remedy the situation, yet has been seemingly ineffective. Affirmative action has caused problems without fulfilling its

Your world is very different, at least on its surface. In many ways now is a more confusing time to live. In Seeing a Colorblind Future, Patricia Williams says we are saturated with insistent emblems of brotherhood—multicolored children singing “We Are the World;” television shows with the obligatory child of color; teachers’ adamant statements that “we are all the same” and “color doesn’t matter.” Yet, attacks on rectifying past discrimination are made unabashedly under the flag of “color-blindness,” white hate crimes are on the upswing, many communities and schools are more segregated than they were 20 years ago. I receive at least a call a week from frantic African-American parents living all over the country who are terrified at the hostility shown regularly by