Let America Be America Again: Racism Analysis

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.

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.

Racism in modern America has yet to be cast out of existence because most people has turned a blind eye to it. Moving through time, from when Jim Crow laws were first introduced, until today. The nation has greatly moved forward but it has taken steps backwards at times. Overcoming racism is proving to be one of the most difficult tasks for this country. Although, some would say that

Racism seems to be a cultural crutch that stems from the hatred and backwash of american history, leading us to believe it still affects us in a major way today. But what if we were colorblind? Would this change the way we see ourselves? Whether we know it or not racism and the concept of race itself affects everybody in day to day life. It affects us as a country, as a person, politically, and socially. As Coates makes it very clear that race on its own causes racism, not the other way around causes one to think that things could possibly be a little different. Including me. Unfortunately the the striking relevance falls onto my family tree as well. My Mother and her twin, my

We know that racism has been around for thousands of years and even after slavery ended, there was still inequality in America and even till this day we still see inequality everywhere in the American society. Is there really a solution to end racism in America? After thousands of years of white Americans being “superior” to African Americans, can history be erased? We see that Africans were supposed to obey their “masters,” they were not allowed to practice their own cultural beliefs, and could not even appear in churches that were ran by whites. In the sixth chapter of Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation, Asante introduces the impacts religion had on racism in the African American community.

“During the 1990s and 2000s, many big cities actively depopulated themselves of people of color and the poor. […] The dramatic 1972 demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe projects eliminated homes for 15,000. (Chang, 2016)” Jeff Chang’s book We Gon’ Be Alright takes this sentiment that all inequality and inequity ever felt by minority groups comes from White racism, expands it into many different examples. While reading his book, I decided to research for myself if his opinions were just that, or had evidence and facts. What I found was a combination. As much as I would love to say that racism hasn’t existed in this country since 1964, that’s unfortunately not true. And while that is true, the bulk of the evidence pointed away from racism in the

Racism in this country has been prevalent over centuries now, and still a huge hindrance in the United States of America. Racism has a huge history with scholars documenting the long illustrious reasons and root causes as to why this has become such a major topic of issue in the United States and its psychological and social obliterations in the society.

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.

Although it is the 21st century and we are aware of what racism is but when it is the topic of the discussion, it always seems to be ignored. Americans ignore the little issues that can be solved which can enhance our happiness but since they’re ignored or we are unaware of these issues, it won’t help. While​ ​everyone​ ​gets​ ​to​ ​pursue​ ​happiness,​ ​many​ ​people​ ​never​ ​achieve​ ​it,​ ​partly​ ​because​ ​the standards​ ​of​ ​our​ ​society’s​ ​expectations​ ​are​ ​too​ ​high​ ​and​ ​unrealistic.