Racial Diversity And Racism

In Common hour, we learned about Diversity, Community, & Social Justice. We learned that Diversity and Social Identity are interconnected, one cannot exist without the other. Social Identity is one aspect of Diversity, while Diversity is based upon Social Identity. However, both of these concepts depend on whether you experience Privilege and Oppression. Like Diversity and Social Identity, Privilege and Oppression cannot exist without the other. On the other hand, it’s not necessarily good that Privilege can only exist because of Oppression because people, regardless of their own personal accomplishments, are judged and discriminated by others.

This issue of racism is popular by name but tends to be sugar coated by the way people see it. In order to truly understand racism you need to take a bite into the topic in order to get a taste of what it is really like. Racism comes in many different forms and can be seen many different ways. But why even care about racism at all? Why does it even matter? One would think that with such a harsh background regarding racism in America it would no longer exist in society today. But sadly that is not the case here, racism continues to show up all over the country sometimes being worse than others but still racism is racism. People should all be considered equal regardless of what they look like, talk like, or even do that makes them who they are.

How does it feel like to be a problem? Many would answer this question in different ways. Everyone has experienced “being the problem” in different ways. However, in terms of race, the answer to this question was similar among most African Americans. Living like they are a problem, consists of a majority of their lives. Different documents ranging from 1903 to our present day in 2015 mirror this same ideology. People such as W.E.B DuBois, Anne Moody, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama, expressed the same concern. Many people in our society, past and present, see being African American as a sign of inferiority. Race shouldn’t be the distinguishing factor between people. Moody, King, Obama, and DuBois all show that the fixation on race was a debilitating problem and appealed to their audiences for action to break free of these prejudices by trying to identify the problems and recommending courses of action.

Today, racism and racial discrimination is something you see everyday. Whether it be in a news story, an article on social media, or something that you personally witness, but what is racism? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. This means that one race will discriminate another because they believe that their race is better. Some people think that the only people that can be racist are white people. Their definition of racism is summed up to white people discriminating against the minority including African Americans and Latinos. Their definition of racism is not true. Racism does go both ways. Anyone is capable of saying, “Hey, my race is better than yours for this reason.” This is called reverse racism. The term reverse racism is referred to as discrimination against racial majorities inflicted by racial minorities. Reverse racism does exist and it is just as common as racism (“Racism”).

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Is race-thinking an inevitable product of the fact of human diversity? Before attempting to address this question, we must first deconstruct and define the terms race-thinking as well as race. Race-thinking, as Paul C. Taylor defines the term, occurs when human beings assign “generic meaning to human bodies and bloodlines” (16); it concerns itself with the “kinds, called races, and... about individuals, who thereby have racial identities (18). The concept of race is an elusive term to define, especially since philosophers, biologists, and sociologists may define the term via different methods. Michael Hardimon, a philosopher at UC San Diego, defines the logical core of the concept of race by imposing a set of three theses that constitutes and

Marsiglia, F.F.,& Kulis, S. (2015). Diversity, oppression and change (2nd ed.). Lyceum Books, Inc., Chicago, IL.

Since the discovery of the America; slavery, separate but equal; segregated pools, buses, trains and water fountains; workplace and housing discriminations; as well as other biases and hostilities have served as the painful reality of the United States’ racial health, especially for African Americans, more so those living in Southern States; Let not forget about the beatings, bombings and assassinations.

I agree with many of your statements, that you expressed throughout your paper. It’s crazy to think that as Americans, we don’t care about diversity. But, I also can see why individuals prefer to be around others that are similar to themselves. As, Americans if we are surrounded by others similar to ourselves, we are able to express our emotions to one another. Living in the 21st century, Americans should not be afraid to become more diverse. For instance, an African American family should not be afraid to move into a neighborhood with the majority being a Caucasian population. But, as time goes on I hope as a country we can all evolve and accept the fact that everyone is different.

Families are not always perfect. Indeed, many times as a member of a conservative white family, I have found myself listening to a few rather racist and discriminatory conversations. Now, this is not saying that my family is made up of terrible people, merely that they need to be educated on these issues. The issue that was brought up at my last family dinner was the topic of college, and how minorities (specifically blacks) receive better treatment than whites. After listening to my family, I realized that they were expressing three theories on race and ethnicity: the Human Ecology, Social Darwinist, and Culture of Poverty perspectives were all intermingled in the conversation. Recently, race relations has been a topic for debate in the United States, with many saying that racism is a thing of the past. However, based upon my family’s debate, and the many sources that research the issues, it can be seen that the topic of racism, race, and ethnicity are all still relevant topics in America.

The distinct scene of race diversity was not introduced into my life until I was at the age of 8. Especially since I was born in an impoverished third world country of 15 million (Cambodia), I was not introduced to another ethnicity besides my own. Heck at one point I presume that my country was the only one on this planet. It was not until my transition from middle school, high school, and college did I started to get a better understanding of the word called “color”. Most peoples might relate to this, but what make you differ from everyone else? Well, the answer is simple and it is classified as “color”.

“[People] may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but [they] all belong to one human race.”- Kofi Annan

In recent times, racist activities have been prevalent in American communities which is a long standing issue between blacks and whites especially in colleges and the society at large. A freshman at ETSU counter protested along with the black racial group in a provocative way to showcase the depth of the tussle between blacks and whites in the USA.

To understand whether or not racism is learnt, we first have to divulge into the nature of racism. It is usually assumed that racism has been a part of civilisation since civilisation started, that it is embedded into how people work and that no matter what, it will always exist. Another assumption is that racism derives from the capitalism of the slave trade by white elitist men seeking to dehumanize people for economic gain, and used racism as a way to mask their financial motives to justify enslavement as righteous. After anti-slavery movements began to happen, the capitalist motives behind slavery “took on a new form as the justification of the ideology of imperialism” [4].

Being a minority in today’s society is quite challenging, as Richard Rodriguez and Sherman Alexie portray in their stories “The Hunger of Memory” and “Superman and Me”. Both of the authors are men who’ve come from the “lower class” or the minority classes. Both of them come from the supressment and stereotyping of their people. They have lived with more than what most Americans (the white population) may every live with. The points stressed in both stories are assimilation into American society as a minority and how it conformed them from now they started the journey. Even though Rodriguez and Alexie have similar focal points on the topic of American assimilation, the two authors derive their stories from two different perspectives as both have different experiences, but the same influential impact on their lives.