My Graduate Studies: 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.

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

Strom Thurmond was a Democrat? George Bush was a strong opposer of black voting rights? Times

Feeling unwanted can be the most heartbreaking sensation to experience, but being told that you don’t belong because of something as simple as race is infinitely more crushing. In the US, this is still very common; and not just against one race. There are many towns, even states that are considered oriented towards one race. This is especially horrid because people try to say that racism is a thing of the past, when the truth is nearly the opposite. For example, if a white-black mixed couple were to display affection in public, chances are that they would either be shunned or given dirty looks and/or snarky remarks. Also, another big factor that keeps racism going is the fact that it is considered okay for certain races to say words

"The legacy of past racism directed at blacks in the United States is more like a bacillus that we have failed to destroy, a live germ that not only continues to make some of us ill but retains the capacity to generate new strains of a disease for which we have no certain cure." - Stanford Historian George Frederickson.

Just fifty years ago, America was a society of segregation and racism. The dictionary defines racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior to another.” Although it is clear times have changed, racism is still seen in modern american society. It’s also clear that relationships between African Americans and whites are generally better than they were in the forties and fifties. Today, it is rare to witness a black man walk down the street and step off the sidewalk to let a white man walk by, or to see a black man sitting on a different section of the bus or train because a white man told him he has too. But superiority of races is still happening. A lot of this has the do with the ignorance of others. Passed down generation to

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.

Racism is a concept most of the globalized world is familiar with. Some people have experienced it first-hand, some haven´t and deny its current existence. Historically, racism has existed in the western world, and its effects have been tremendous -even talking about it in the U.S. has become a controversial topic after the 2016 Presidential Elections. For some people, it is even hard to imagine a point in time were skin color was something that was overlooked. On the other hand, some other parts of the world have been quite unaffected by it. But, why is racism more prevalent in some regions, and what historical event suddenly made society give so much important to race?

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.

Near the end of the 1920`s, the KKK membership excelled over 4 million people nationwide. The history of the Ku Klux Klan has a dark past and most recently a dark future. By the twentieth century, racism had taken a curve in history. Over the recent years, racism has affected most of the people in the country. The KKK had an enormous effect on the U.S. by showing how blind we once were and how divided we still are.

Whites seemingly have always thought they were somehow superior to colored people. Whites in England conquered half the world just to show how powerful they were. Spaniards used Native Americans as slaves to mine gold in the early days of Mexico. America relied on slaves to farm for them or perform household chores. After slavery was abolished in most countries, racism prevailed. In the United States whites established the “Separate but Equal” idea. For example, whites may have had a very nice drinking fountain, next to it there would be a black drinking fountain that barely worked. Even today, racism can be seen everyday. White kids teasing colored kids. A white man getting hired at a workplace before a black

happen if a society is full of racism; unfortunately, some of those happened and they are the most important factors that makes racism is one of the hottest problem in the U.S.

The topic of my thesis is the issue of racism and slavery in the history of the United States of America. Every person who is familiar with the history if the United States should also know some information when slavery and racism began, how those happened what are the most important information from this time period was. As we know, the racism began around 17th century with the European colonization in North America. The phenomenon or racism is still present. As it can be seen, slavery and racism played a huge role in the history of the United States, which will be proven or rejected in the thesis.

Racism Although racism in America, or lack there of, has come far from the days of slave owners it is not to say that it has been abolished by any means, and nor do I personally believe it ever will be one hundred percent. When taking a close look at our current society one can see that almost anywhere there is still the presence of racism, for instance just recently there was a peaceful protest in southern California ending in three people being stabbed and upwards of ten other being taken into custody. This brawl was between the notoriously white supremacist group “Klu Klux Klan” and a majority black counter-protest group. Even to disregard the violent end to this encounter it is obvious that people are still harboring racism in parts of our United States by the mere fact that there is still people actively participating in groups that goal include gaining back the “control” of America by the hand of white males and no others.

Sadly, as I end this book, another tragedy has occurred and this time it is the murder of nine African Americans by a young White man. It is a very sad commentary when worshipers can’t find peace in their sanctuary because of misguided ignorance and racist human beings. I said earlier that I believe that racism is at the root of many of the problems we have in the world today. Unfortunately, my beliefs have once again been proven by this cowardly act.