Racial Discrimination And Its Effects On American Culture

Discrimination and prejudice are widely known in United States history. In the 1960's the civil rights movement demanded legislation and passed laws, which banned discrimination. Five decades later, it still continues in our society. Discrimination and prejudice occur when a group of people feel they are superior to another, and can be based on a person's color, race, national origin, religion, sex and gay couples.

As children grow up, they become the person they turn out to be because of experiences and the culture and society they grew up in. Nations are affected in the same sense because the people living in a nation affect how the nation is influenced and builds its character.

America may be a young nation compared to those around those around the world and we as a nation have achieved a lot in our years. One battle that we have been fighting since the birth of our nation however is one against our own people. For years we have been divided by the colors of our skin and our heritage. Although Caucasian people may be the majority of our population, individually there are just as diverse of people in their origins as the minorities of this country. It just isn’t as apparent as having a culture branded into a skin tone. America is known as a melting pot of races from all over the globe. A lot of people seem to have forgotten where they came from after generations of searching for the “American Dream,” thus creating a typical “white American”. One instance where the white Americans banded together and discriminated against one race occurred after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. The racism that occurred against Japanese Americans is not as talked about as slavery, but the fact that it is talked about so little just goes to show that Americans are willing to sweep horrendous acts against our own people under the rug.

Racial discrimination has existed in the United States since its inception; nonetheless, a legion of courageous people have worked to end that discrimination. Some of those were the Little Rock Nine, who pioneered integration in Little Rock’s Central High School when the Supreme Court declared the state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. These nine black kids enrolled at Little Rock’s Central High School in 1957. The integration of Little Rock led to being the source of the harassment for the nine of them. The nine were ordered not to retaliate, for it could lead to punishment. This warning then led to the expulsion of one of the nine, Minnijean Brown. According to the documents, Minnijean Brown’s actions in the documents created the impression that she was expelled first for the chili incident, and secondly for retaliation; however, in the end, it was prompted that Minnijean was expelled because she refused to act inferior.

The White-Americans have stereotypes of being biased, well-off, pretentious, oblivious, egocentric, and naive about other cultures. More so, they favor their own people and culture. Throughout my education, I’ve attended predomanitly African-American schools and some schools with mixed cultures. Going into high school, I encountered my first conflict with multiple White Americans. The first two years of high school, I attended a predominately White-American school. I was anxious to know where some of the girls got there “North Face Jackets” from, because I thought

“Oppression, you seek population control, Oppression, to divide and conquer is your goal, Oppression, I swear hatred is your home, Oppression, you mean me only harm.” (Harper). Oppression is a serious issue in our society today. Although it may be less serious than the past it is still a matter of importance, having to deal with sexism, religion and most importantly racial issues. Throughout the decades we have seen various ethnicities deal with racial oppressions. Many of the problems of the past still exist, and they may push the victims of the oppression beyond the emotional point of no return. A Hispanic male such as myself, can be the victim of several types of oppressions, including racial oppression.

People have been stereotyped into a certain group because of their skin color or they have been discriminated against because of how they dress, their name, or even their hairstyle. Minorities such as African Americans deal with this type of racial discrimination every day because of their skin color and the way they might sound despite if they do not sound as the way they appear. For example, if an African American person walked into an interview dressed nicely and clean and a caucasian went in for an interview dressed just as nice and clean, the Caucasian application is more likely to get the job and receive a higher rating than the African American applicant. (Zimmerman) It might seem to the naked eye that minorities in general somewhat have the same opportunities as Caucasian people but in fact they do not really have them. All in all, there is still racial discrimination in America and African Americans do not have the same opportunities as Caucasians in housing, education, and jobs.

The African American culture has experience a lot of things, we have experience being discriminate because the color of our skin. African American has heirted power from our ancestor to fight for what we believe in.During slavery time we could experience privilege because we was control by the master and we did have a choice to decide things, we did not have the privilege to have education.The paragrarph below will go into more detail how African American was discriminate, how they have power and what privilege they had.

Economic benefits are at the center of white privilege. Dating back to slavery, the majority of labor was provided by African Americans from which both the North and the South benefited and is one of the founding source of economy. Yet, African Americans and other minorities still struggle to get their slice of the American pie. Poor and working class whites strongly object to the idea of white privilege, stating or pointing out what they consider the obvious, that not every white person has wealth and power. Other benefits enjoyed by white people, including one which W. E. B. DuBois called the "psychological wages of whiteness." (Williams, 2004) This refers to that age old membership in the privileged group, even for whites on the bottom rung, confers a social status and recognition which is denied to all but the most powerful members of oppressed groups. The history of racial oppression in American is not disputed. However, what is disputed is whether and to what extent, four hundred years of oppression continues to harm African Americans and other minorities and their life chances unjustly. Looking at the way benefits and damages are allocated in the U.S., for example wealth, income, equality of our court system, treatment from the police, access to colleges and universities we see white privilege. As a group, white people have more income, wealth, political representation, status, power, and social reinforces of their human dignity and self respect than any group in

We have issues: more specifically , the United States has issues, continuous and all-encompassing issues of racial inequality.The United States is experiencing a outburst of racism, as can be seen from the 2014 killings of two unarmed African-American men, to the brutality of white supremacy in Charleston and the string of arsons in black churches across the South. Of course, it’s nothing new for a nation with a long history of extreme racist violence—the most recent lynching-related death occurred in 1981, hardly a lifetime ago, when Michael Donald was hanged by two members of the Ku Klux Klan.The United States, however, continues to avoid its history on race, refusing to confront its past in a “post-racial,” “colorblind” society, and that policy of systemic ignorance is particularly strong when mention of racial equality is brought up. Although the concept of equality has never truly existed in this world, as can be traced back to the very beginnings of recorded history we see the nobles ruling the commoners, conquerors reigning over the conquered, the will of man dominating women; the United States needs to acknowledge the fact that racial inequality still exists within our country and has in no way progressed towards betterment.

Along with misogyny and LGBT+ phobia, racism is one of the many methods of discrimination and bias that still exists today in America. It affects many ethnicities; Asian, Latino, even Indigenous Americans, but racial bias in the United States today especially focuses on African Americans as it did since the times of slavery. How does the race system still exist? The answer is simple; racial bias, like a living creature, will constantly adapt to its surroundings as time passes. Michelle Alexander’s nonfiction book, The New Jim Crow (2010), discusses the several changes made to the racial caste system following slavery and how most African Americans themselves cannot see it in its form today.

Although we seem to see a new news story every day concerning racial bias and blatant racism, it is not a new issue. “We have been engaging in this conversation for as long as I can remember. Fighting this fight for centuries. Caught in a cycle of bias for as long as they can remember.” (Nichols) I believe all the adversity we are facing as a country today can be attributed to the attitudes of the early American settlers who laid the basis for our bias as a country. In fact, historians date racism in America as far back as the 1500’s with the beginning of the Middle Passage and our first look into racially profiling individuals for slavery.

When people think of Canada, they likely imagine a prospering country filled with equal opportunity, safety, and security. While this statement can be true for the population of privileged white people, Canada, unfortunately, has had some unproud moments in its history, and sadly, the treatment of minorities is still poor today. Specifically, there has been historic problems between Canada and indigenous people, from as early as the colonization of the land stolen from the indigenous people to the assimilation of youth with residential schools. The land that is proudly called “Canada” today, once was the home to many aboriginal tribes including the East Indies, before it was stolen by colonizers (Vikings, French, and Europeans) as early as

Starting in 1501, white Portuguese men enslaved over five million Africans and brought them back to Brazil to work on sugar plantations, creating a power dynamic that has lasted for centuries. After nearly four hundred years of slavery, freed black men and women were left with no education, place to live, or family, placing them at an economic disadvantage from the beginning. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, following emancipation, white men began to procreate with indigenous and African women, creating a mixed or mulatto race, which led to the false identification of Brazil as a country with a “racial democracy.” However, darker-skinned individuals still remained at the bottom of the racial hierarchy, facing systems of social, economic, and educational discrimination. The racial inequalities, products of historical legacy, have resulted in a society that has severe racial stratifications and continues to subject Afro-Brazilians to prejudice, poverty, and police brutality. Although racial discrimination in contemporary Brazilian society is pervasive, particularly noticeable in the lack of economic and social mobility, discrimination is not a new phenomenon in Brazil, but rather the culmination of 500 years of historical inequities rooted in slavery, eugenics, immigration policy, the process of miscegenation, and the myth of racial “democracy”.

Canadian citizens understand genocide to be a terrible thing that other countries have done, or are doing. The eradication of an entire population of civilian women, men, and children along with their culture and national sovereignty is something we condemn in our media. When we see genocide happening elsewhere, we debate when we should step in with economic sanctions or military action when it is time to put a stop to a crime against humanity. Rarely, if ever, do we examine our own history long enough to understand that Canada was created by people who committed genocide against the people who were already living here.