Charles W Mills' 'The Racial Contract 1997'

Reading the article, “The Racial Discrimination System” by Barbara Reskin, helped me see that diversity is more than just race; it varies between skin color, wealth, education level, religious beliefs, and gender identity. But even though multiple laws since the 1960s have been passed to ban racial discrimination, the effects are still around today. One of the concepts from the article that really intrigued me was when it talked about some of the racial disparities I wasn’t even aware of. For example, prior to reading the article, I didn’t know that black businesses on average would pay higher interest rates than white businesses. And while I was aware about the employment gap between blacks and whites, I didn’t realize that blacks were twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. And while I always believed

America has had discrimination against minorities for a long time and it will continue to have it until people treat minorities with respect. Discrimination is when people treat minorities bad because of their skin color, ethnicity and the place they were born. For immigrants, the problems they had to arrive to America were not a good experience only by the struggle to gain acceptance among the population. Most immigrants came to the U.S. to have a better life and give education to their children. Almost all immigrants have experienced discrimination at some point in their life and even some are still experiencing it today. Most Latinos don’t have a choice but to deal with it because they know they are illegal and they can’t say anything

Racial Formation in the United States by Michael Omi and Howard Winant made me readjust my understanding of race by definition and consider it as a new phenomenon. Through, Omi and Winant fulfilled their purpose of providing an account of how concepts of race are created and transformed, how they become the focus of political conflict, and how they shape and permeate both identities and institutions. I always considered race to be physical characteristic by the complexion of ones’ skin tone and the physical attributes, such as bone structure, hair texture, and facial form. I knew race to be a segregating factor, however I never considered the meaning of race as concept or signification of identity that refers to different types of human bodies, to the perceived corporal and phenotypic makers of difference and the meanings and social practices that are ascribed to these differences, in which in turn create the oppressing dominations of racialization, racial profiling, and racism. (p.111). Again connecting themes from the previous readings, my westernized influences are in a direct correlation to how to the idea of how I see race and the template it has set for the rather automatic patterns of inequalities, marginalization, and difference. I never realized how ubiquitous and evolving race is within the United States.

Race in Argentina and Cuba, 1880-1930: Theory, Policies, and Popular Reaction, by Aline Heig; In the Analysis of the writen of Sarmiento, Bunge, and Ingenieros; Heig explain the believe of the racial theory in Argentina and Cuba. She explained about the different treatments during those times in which the social and racial class it was divided. Cuba and Argentina it was characterize by the separation of skin color. The Anglo-Saxon in Argentina and Cuba have the idea of superiority race and inferiority. However, Heig explain that the ideology of the Argentina culture is very similar because they believe in the white superiority and Indians and black inferiority.

the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any

In the PBS documentary, we learned that that race and freedom were developed together. Historian Robin D.G. Kelley points out a problem our founding fathers faced: “how can we promote liberty, freedom, democracy on the one hand, and a system of slavery and exploitation of peoples who are non-white on the other?” (1:04:43). Our past presidents rationalized this contradiction by declaring that blacks and other races had a natural inferiority to whites. Such reasons were used to justify America’s political goals for power and money that benefit the white society at the expense of others. Omi and Winant claim that “the introduction of slavery… presupposed a worldview which distinguished [whites] from ‘others’.. . to explain why some should be ‘free’ and others enslaved, why some had rights to land and property while others did not” (1). The enslavement of Africans led to the ideology of white supremacy which builds up a political system that privileges white people over “others”. Granting opportunities only to whites widens the social difference along racial lines. This historical attitude toward racial difference has determined the way most of us currently view the world.

Walter Benn Michaels, a white man, believes that economic inequality is a more “fundamental” problem than the racial divisions that currently exist in society. He is very quick to dismiss the concept of race and counters W.E.B. Dubois’ definition of a black man- “a person who must ride Jim Crow in Georgia”(Michaels 47). Walter Benn Michaels states “the beliefs about race that underlay the Jim Crow laws have turned out to be mistaken; we no longer believe them and we no longer have Jim Crow...if a black man

Race in the United States has always been a problem in the past and still remains the same in the present society. Race relations is defined by relations between members or communities of different races within one country (en.oxforddictionairies.com). Minorities have been denied legally and socially rights in the past by the dominant race, White Americans. Now in modern society minorities are the majority of the United States, but are still being racial targeted, profiled and killed by White Americans.

Race is a manmade social construction, first used to justify slavery in the early Colonial period. The articles discussed in this paper examines different elements of race and of slavery. The articles present two completely different opinions on the treatment and ideals associated with race and slavery before the civil war. While the articles are on completely different sides of spectrum associated with slavery, they are both discussing race.

The idea of slavery naturally associates with race. People automatically categorize masters and their slaves as either white or black. Though slavery existed hundreds of years ago, slaves never belonged to or corresponded with a particular race or culture. Before slavery in America turned into racial servitude, land and property owners used indentured slaves to meet their economic needs. The reason that the indentured servitude system was ineffective was because of its temporary nature. The colonial elite wanted a permanent solution to slavery. Many landowners also felt threatened by newly freed servants because of their demand for land. The colonial elite realized the problems of indentured servitude and decided to find an alternative method to the

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.

In The Racial Contract, it is argued that contemporary structures of white domination in the United States operate by means of an epistemology of ignorance for white people. White people inadvertently suffer from cognitive dysfunctions such that they cannot understand the racially (and racistly) structured world in which they live and, indeed, helped create. For Mills, while no person of any race is self-transparent, becoming a white person entails a particularly extreme form of self-opacity regarding issues of race that corresponds with a conspicuously bad or offensive misunderstanding of the world. Recently with the invasion of Iraq, the president has proven that white people believe that they are correct when that in any given conflict

Race relations are an ever prominent issue in American society. Controversies focusing around race are a commonly seen smeared across the front page of the newspaper or headlining on the evening news. The opposition is usually between a minority group and "The Man," a colloquialism used by many Blacks to refer to the overwhelming power stemming from white racist tendencies. This racial tension can sometimes can cause the oppressed to band together against the oppressor. Many times, the most prevalent link is between the African American community and the Latino community. Here we find two groups of people with very similar lifestyles who find camaraderie between themselves when dealing

a pen because it was safer than a gun. This was a valuable lesson I've

Although slavery and segregation laws are obsolete, racial inequality remains visible within our society. Throughout the course readings, one thing is for sure: the slave trade is the primary cause of racial inequality from 1500 to the present. Those sold into slavery become the property and a product of violence. Moreover, throughout the 15th to mid-18th centuries, slavery caused people to despise those who looked different from them, based on skin color. Slavery has caused numerous gaps among the privileged white community and minorities who have a history of slavery. This created a divided society based on skin color, with effects that continue to be a small part of our contemporary world.