Race Riot Essay

Is it racism or economics which hinders many African American communities from progressing economically in the 21st Century? This research proposal will address this question by examining the social and psychological impact caused by racism and the economic impact it’s had on the African American community. This proposal will further investigate whether the emotional scars of slavery continue to hamper African American progress or if racism is actually the cause.

Over the years, the face of racism has taken on many forms. In present day America, racism is a very taboo subject. It a common view that racism is not a big issue anymore, given the large strides that we, as a country have made towards equality. However, the inequalities that still exist between races point to a different situation. Instead of the blatantly discriminatory acts that our nation has witnessed in the past, modern racism practices are more covert and seemingly nonracial, making this kind of discrimination seem more acceptable and politically correct. The Civil Rights Movement forced society to implement a new, subtler way to perpetuate racial inequality. In Racism Without Racists, Bonilla-Silva describes the justification

Many left to the North because it was a place “…where there are no lynchings” (Sandburg 15), a place where they could be safe. The black population in Chicago lived in an area known as the “black belt.” The Negro Migration caused the population in the Chicago “black belt” to more than double from 50,000 to 125,000 making Chicago have the third or fourth largest black population next to New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington (7).

The Tulsa race riot changed the course of American history by actively expressing African American views on white supremacy. Before the events of the Tulsa race riot African Americans saw the white community taking justice into their own hands. Black citizens of Tulsa stood up against this sort of white mob. This escaladed into the Tulsa race riot. The Tulsa race riot and its effects weighed heavily upon the African Americans of this era.

In the year 1898 in the town of Wilmington, North Carolina a riot occurred between the African American inhabitants and the white minority of the city. Several historians accuse the origin of the riot on racism and white supremacy. Although these two beliefs have been around for countless years, and African Americans received the right to vote almost thirty years’ prior, no demonstration nor aggressive threats, to the point in which was seen in 1898, had occurred in Wilmington until that year. The Wilmington Race Riot was the reaction of the “sociopolitical conditions” that were being applied by the Democratic Party to win the election through a sequence of diabolical campaign tactics just like creating partial accusations about the “negroes” of the town thus, creating unconstitutional practices, and threatening their existence.

Have you ever said that you wanted to start a riot, and people have responded by saying that’s not funny? Well here’s why they say that. On May 31, 1921 a riot occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It all happened when Dick Rowland (an African American) was accused of raping a white woman named Sarah Page in an elevator, when Rowland had tripped and grabbed her arm by accident. A salesclerk overheard the scream and called the police. Rowland was arrested. There were angry whites that were outside the courtroom protesting for Rowland to be lynched. The violence started for some people on May 31, 1921 and went on until June 1, 1921. 1265 homes, dozens of office buildings, restaurants, churches and schools had been destroyed during this

The Chicago race riots of 1919 were one of the darkest moments in our nations history. But something so terrible does not just happen over night, in fact the reason for this riot began with the Great Migration around 1910. The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African-Americans from the rural south into the urban north. Of those 6 million African-Americans traveling to the north 500,000 of them went to Chicago 's South Side. The African-American population thought they were going to a better situation by escaping the apartheid practices of Jim Crow. However they were taken advantage of and seen as new competition to the northern white population. Nine years later during the summer of 1919, two years after World War I ended, the American society suffered from a racial tension that it has never seen before. The racial tension brewed from the demobilization of black and white

A racially segregated Chicago had experienced few race riots prior to 1919. However, between April 1919 and October 1919, race riots spanned the nation; this became known as the Red Summer. On July 27, 1919, Chicagoans started to express their emotions on racial issues, which turned into violence, lasting several days and resulting in the deaths, injuries, and displacement of hundreds of people. During this time, Chicagoans opinions regarding racism led to extreme chaos, leaving African Americans and whites fighting with each other for wealth and opportunities. The relatively-invisible line between blacks and whites in Chicago became bolder, deepening the rift between the races. As a result of the gruesome events that occurred in the summer of 1919, segregation in Chicago deepened. Chicago city officials created the Chicago Commission of Race Relations, comprised of six whites and six blacks, with the goal of solving large racial issues in Chicago, such as housing for blacks and job competition. Today, Chicago is more desegregated, but it was an arduous journey and is still a work in progress. It is still a predominant issue, and there are many recurring examples of racial violence in Chicago currently. This makes racial inequality an even more important issue in Chicago communities, and the legacy of this racial violence continues to haunt this persistently segregated city.

“Racism is a bad thing, you find it everywhere in the schools, the clubs and also in the streets.”

“E Pluribus Unum”, “Out of Many, One”; Originally used to suggest that out of many colonies or states shall emerge a single unified nation, but over the years it has become the melting pot of the many people, races, religions, cultures and ancestries that have come together to form a unified whole, and even though America prides itself on being this melting pot racism is still alive and well today. America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, the country that calls to so many; calling to them with the promise of freedom and prosperity, to live their lives as they see fit. As stated in the National Anthem, America is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." America is the country where dreams can come true. So if America has

Racism can be “defined as the hatred of one person by another or the belief that another person is less than human because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes” (“What”). The face of racism over the past 50 years has changed but yet, some still stay the same. People made laws against racism and it is not as blunt anymore. But opinions and stereotypes will remain which will cause others to still be treated differently.

Unwittingly or quite knowingly people have built systems of inequalities around race but people have also built identity, friendships, and college mates around it. Nevertheless, several people I recently interviewed never appeared to be certain when race was a good thing or when it was a bad thing to talk about, which in my mind leaves us all struggling with a particularly intimidating question: When should we talk as if race matters?

Today, a serious problem exists all over the world. Racial oppression takes place in the poorest and the richest countries, including America. Racial oppression is characterized by the majority, or the ruling race, imposing its beliefs, values, and laws on the minority, or the ruled race. In most areas, the ruling race is upper class whites that run the “system”, and have a disproportionate amount of power. In other areas, it may not be the white race, but it is still the race that is comprised of the majority, makes the laws, or has the most money. These are the keys to domination over the weaker minorities that don’t have the power to thrive under the majority’s system according to their own cultural beliefs,

“There is nothing wrong with a little casual racism.” One of my friends recently commented this phrase to me, in a joking manner, but it struck me. Is just a little casual racism fine? I am one to err on the side of, “All things in moderation” but is it truly not a problem? In our society, today we see racism in our soup. In many ways, I feel as if the word communist has been switched with the word racist. No longer do we call each other a communist if they are stingy or different, we just stoop to the words racist or xenophobe. In the essay, written by Roxanne Gay, called, Surviving Django, Gay makes claims that she was offended by the racially insensitive, supercharged, ego driven film, created by Quentin Tarantino. She proceeds to

For many years now the people in power or “whites” have passed laws so that other racial groups are kept at the bottom of the social hierarchy. These racial group that are kept at the bottom become racialized and oppressed therefore they become unequal to the people that are at the top of this hierarchy. The racial groups that are kept at the bottom vary from the Native-Americans to the Mexican-Americans and obviously the African-Americans. In this essay I will be comparing how the racialization process has been similar and different between these racial groups. I will also define race and racialization. Furthermore, I will explain how class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship has impacted the racialization process within these groups.