Cultural Crutch: Racism In The United States

In Chapter 1, Alexander provides a brief history of race and racism in America. For those readers less familiar with the narrative of American history, this tour through slavery, Bacon’s Rebellion, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, Populism, the end of Jim Crow through Board, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is very instructive. Even if this narrative sounds familiar though, what comes next is probably less so. The backlash to the Civil Rights Movement manifested itself in the Southern Strategy and the first construction of stereotypes such as lazy “welfare cheats” and black criminals. “Law and order” rhetoric became a popular way to stoke hostility towards blacks; it was carried out by conservatives to win votes among poor whites.

The most important theme in this book was the trials and tribulations of racism because it was woven in every part of the plot, it contributed to the conflict and resolutions, and gave the story a connection to current events, helping the reader’s comprehension.

John Locke, a social contract theorist, says that mankind is equal and independent and “no one ought to harm another of his life, health, liberty or possessions.” When humans enter into a society and form a contract, which leads to government, Locke holds that it is the job of the government to take on the responsibility of protecting the life, liberty and property of its inhabitants; however, the US government failed to protect these rights for Black Americans affected by slavery. Adam Smith, an economist and political theorist, believed that the government should defend and be proprietors of justice. The American government’s purpose, for Smith and Locke, is to promote justice through flourishing ; specifically economic flourishing for Smith. Sadly, history reveals that this was not the circumstance. During the 1700’s, America was one of several countries to embrace chattel slavery. Though slavery is no longer legal in the US, its effects have still rippled the waters of history. Today America stands on trial. It is guilty of failing to fulfill its role as a government by promoting flourishing. Slavery and segregation in the United States have impeded the economic flourishing amongst Black American communities. History and literature will serve as evidence of this crime in exploring the impact of slavery and segregation in education, familial structure and economics.

Racism goes a long way down the American history. It came as a result of slavery which began in 1619 when African slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia, which was an American colony in the North, to help in producing crops such as tobacco. Slavery was then a common practice in all American colonies through the 17th and 18th centuries, where African slaves helped in building the economic foundations of the now American nation. Slavery was then spread to the South in 1793, with the new invention of the cotton gin. About halfway through the 19th century, there was immense westward expansion in America, together with the spreading abolition movement in the North,

Racism, a controversial topic in contemporary American society, has only been accentuated in recent years due to interracial violence, especially violence portrayed by white police officers on black individuals. This violence has led to even more violence and protests upon the police officers as the protesters, mainly black, feel as if they are being policed unfairly. These protests have ranged from mainly peaceful to full on chaos and violence. One could connect this interracial violence and protests to several different criminological theories, including conflict theory, differential selection and processing hypothesis, and neutralization theory. Likewise, these theories could be combined with an end-to end theoretical integration method in order to strengthen empirical validity.

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 shaped societies since the beginning of time, as far back as the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even then, people living in the land of Goshen were subjugated to racism because of their differences. From Hitler and the Nazis to the Southern American slave owners, prejudice of one race against another has resulted in atrocities. Racism has shaped the form of our present day societies. Racism will likely never be completely removed from our society it will always exist. However, in an effort to counteract the disease of racism, modern-day societies have drafted and enacted legislation for the sole purpose of ensuring that people treat each other with respect and dignity allowing one another their inalienable right to their

Is racism still a problem in America more than fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement, and 48 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson? How far has America come from the days when African Americans were lynched by fanatical racist mobs and from the days when Jim Crowe laws trumped the laws set forth by the U.S. Constitution? This paper delves into those and other issues involving racism in America. Thesis: American has come a long way from the days of lynchings and prohibitions against African Americans voting or sitting at the lunch counter. There are laws that protect minorities from discrimination in housing and hiring, and great strides have been made. However, racism remains a reality, including institutional racism in America.

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.

In the United State of America, racism is part of our cultural cloth. It's in the air that we breathe everyday. The sad part about is that i believe that some may know when their racial comments and others could get it from their family background and their so use to that they don’t even know they're being racist. Institutional racism is a strong system of privileges and powers that is based on race. Those powerful structures typically start as innocent interactions that is suppose to be helping all races but in the end will only be helping one. For instance, people tend to move to different areas than the areas you will typically see them in just for great schools, living conditions, great teachers, great paying jobs, maybe even for greater

Zihang, I do have the same opinion as you and believe that the riot did spring from racism. I really like your statement "the safety of the citizen shall not depend what he or she dressed. " The ideal situation would be everyone to be treated equally not based on their skin color, race, or religion. But the reality was different as the Mexican Americans were described as a race that promoted violence, according to Edward Duran Ayers, who was the spokesman for the L.A County Sheriff's Department. (The Good War, p. 207)

For centuries, America has been known as "the land of the free", but is it really free? What about the pledge of allegiance? The phrase "one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." seems a little odd. Originally, people came to America to express their religion freely and create a new nation; with the declaration of independence stating that all men are created equal. Ironically, to this day minorities across America are faced with constant discrimination due to their race. Being born a white person automatically guarantees the right to live as a human being and receive respect from their peers, those who aren't white live with the risk of having their rights turned down and lose respect from others who judge 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.

The population of the United States of America has been one of mixed race since its very beginning. Boatload upon boatload of enslaved Africans provided a labor force which would fuel the American South’s economy for many years, until national abolition and the subsequent civil rights movement created a primarily biracial population of blacks and whites. The US has come a long way since those days, and today every child born into the US is taught from an early age the evils of racism and the shameful actions committed by slave-owning US citizens in the past. From textbooks to televisions, the modern USA seemingly works tirelessly to teach its population that discrimination by race is wrong and that all races are equal. This has led to a great national complacence among whites, and a widespread belief that the US has mostly eradicated racial prejudices. But it is not so, and despite a population almost entirely composed of people who would not consider themselves racists, racism still pervades in the US. In many cases modern racism occurs at the hands of whites who almost absolutely are completely unaware of their discriminatory actions. In the films “Frozen River” and “The Visitor” racism was touched on repeatedly and played an evident part in the messages they were trying to portray.

Throughout US history, white Americans often viewed the other races (or coloreds) as inferior. Even though slavery had been abolished, laws and practices inhibited the fundamental rights African Americans were entitled to. Thus the mentality of racism and prejudice thoughts had persisted in people’s minds. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is set in Maycomb County, Alabama during the timeframe of the 1930s. Citizens of Maycomb County abide by a set of segregation laws and practices. Maycomb County is a typical homogenized and strictly divided region in southern US. The main character Scout is challenged with concepts regarding morality and ethics when dealing with racism occurring at