Ethnic Unbonding in South Africa

Everyone is raised within a culture with a set of customs and morals handed down by those generations before them. Most individual’s view and experience identity in different ways. During history, different ethnic groups have struggled with finding their place within society. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, African Americans faced a great deal of political and social discrimination based on the tone of their skin. After the Civil Rights Movement, many African Americans no longer wanted to be identified by their African American lifestyle, so they began to practice African culture by taking on African hairdos, African-influenced clothing, and adopting African names. By turning away from their roots, many African Americans embraced a culture that was not inherited, thus putting behind the unique and significant characteristics

The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.

Tommie Shelby is an American philosopher and a professor of African American studies at Harvard University. In his article “Justice, Deviance, and the Dark Ghetto” Shelby discusses poor, black neighborhoods that have persisted in America for decades due to few public policy efforts to make things better. In his article Shelby brings up two approaches to this dilemma that he opposes. The first is the personal responsibility approach which appeals to American values of hard work and ultimately places blame on the poor rather than the government or society. The Technocratic approach on the other hand does the opposite. It blames the government for failing to fix the social conditions of the poor and refuses to blame the poor themselves even if they have done actions that have not necessarily improved their well-being. Shelby’s approach is a mix between the two. He says that we cannot blame the poor if the injustice of our society has changed the content of their obligations and thus making their behavior reasonable due to the unfair conditions they were subjected to. In other words they are a product of their environment. Shelby wants to get his point across that the existence of ghettos today is evidence that our society impaired by structural injustices and that the ghetto is not only the problem of those living in it, but all of ours.

The life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination… the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land (qtd. in W.T.L. 235).

The Negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a Negro. His brain is not fitted for the higher forms of mental effort; his ideals, no matter how laboriously he is train and sheltered, remain hose of a clown. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner [sic] born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations a head of him.

Most young black American’s believed that they couldn’t become successful in this nation full of oppression. On average, black family’s earned half the income of whites and were twice as likely to be unemployed. Hope of becoming successful for a young black American was grim. Fortunately, one thing

In order to support his opinion, the author uses historical references to the enormous impact of racial inequality on African American lives. Additionally, Desmond names a set of historical data and rates of the poor African Americans in cities to enhance the reader’s understanding of this complex situation. African Americans were also more likely to get the apartment with broken furniture, windows, and other facilities that confirmed the existence of racial inequality (Desmond, 2016, p.249). To reassert his position, Desmond provides offensive statistics that millions of people are evicted from American homes, and most of them are African American (Desmond, 2016, p.293). As a matter of fact, the author proves that housing discrimination based on race is the primary cause of

He explains how it’s easy for people who have never seen or felt segregation to say wait but they have never got to see their vicious mob kill their mom or your brothers. They’ve never had police hit them or people drown your sister at a whim. When you must see your twenty million brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty amid an affluent society who constantly degrades them just based on the color of their skin. These explicit and emotional experiences offer an insight to people who don’t understand the pain of segregation to see what black people must deal with in their life on the

Marcus Garvey, a ‘proponent of Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements” (), once stated that “a people without knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” (Good Reads Quotes) He was in fact very much so right. Most people in this world care about where they come from, who they descended from and where the backbone of their identity lies. Have you ever wondered why almost most orphans tend to look for their family lines or go out in search of where they belong? It is with this very essence my quest to look for answers and investigate about two very distinct yet similar groups. The groups I examine throughout this paper are Africans and African-Americans. What I seek to find out is why two very ‘distinct’ yet similar groups of people fail to see eye to eye, judging from the fact that Africans and African-Americans look alike, originated from Africa and their histories and culture somehow intertwine with each other. The main question here really is: what are the factors that hinder the relationship between Africans and African-American people.

What can we do better for our country instead of making a mockery towards the blacks who are poorly educated, and have severe economic issues by not providing equal opportunities and not providing schools for them? And could these actions really lead blacks to crime, violence, and laziness? W.E.B Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folks provides his readers a second – hand experience of what racism and segregation was like during the late eighteen hundred. In addition, he presents major themes such as double – consciousness, the color – line, and most important “the Veil”. The importance of “The Veil” describes the real-life experience of what life is like for an African American living in a nation that is divided up into two race groups and receiving terrible treatments. In Du Bois’ “introduction” he states that the greatest problem that blacks face during the twentieth Century was the color – line. The main reason that the color – line is such a problem during the twentieth Century is because it’s tough for the blacks to achieve

Leroy Berry grew up in “Black Philadelphia”—a community where “structural inequalities and racism” creates “a unique Afro-American…subculture” (Lane 226). Growing up in “the streets” caused him to realize that he never wanted his kids to go through what he did, and he strived to get out. Due to the awful education system given to urban black youth, Leroy Berry realized he could not get out of the “hood” through his education alone and realized he had to excel in basketball to even attempt to leave. This migration up in society is a plight many black citizens face. “In the modern American economy…it has grown difficult, perhaps impossible, for any large block of citizens to move up as a group. And it is hard to predict whether all this will change in ways that improve the position of the nation’s impoverished blacks” (Lane 366). Leroy Berry didn’t believe he’d ever get out of the environment white America provided for black urban youth.

Everyone is raised within a culture with a set of customs and morals handed down by those generations before them. Most individual’s view and experience identity in different ways. During history, different ethnic groups have struggled with finding their place within society. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, African Americans faced a great deal of political and social discrimination based on the tone of their skin. After the Civil Rights Movement, many African Americans no longer wanted to be identified by their African American lifestyle, so they began to practice African culture by taking on African hairdos, African-influenced clothing, and adopting African names. By turning away from their roots, many African Americans embraced a

First, in “Cry, the Beloved Country”, racism is seen in many different ways, but one example is through political power. The white community is the leading group in South Africa’s government, so they have the ability to write laws and marginalize the black community. Because of this, blacks are treated unfairly, forced to follow unjust laws, and targeted by police. This all started when the white men colonized the country and took over without regards to the black’s way of life. “It suited the white man to break the tribe, [Msimangu] continues gravely. But it has not suited him

Have you ever wondered how it would feel to be considered inferior because of your race? The people of South Africa had to endure racial inferiority during the era of apartheid. The apartheid laws the government of South Africa made led to an unequal lifestyle for the blacks and produced opposition.

Many of the contemporary issues in South Africa can easily be associated with the apartheid laws which devastated the country. The people of South Africa struggle day by day to reverse “the most cruel, yet well-crafted,” horrific tactic “of social engineering.” The concept behind apartheid emerged in 1948 when the nationalist party took over government, and the all-white government enforced “racial segregation under a system of legislation” . The central issues stem from 50 years of apartheid include poverty, income inequality, land ownership rates and many other long term affects that still plague the brunt of the South African population while the small white minority still enjoy much of the wealth, most of the land and opportunities