Reflection On Race And Class

American society likes to believe that race relations in our country are no longer strained. We do not want to hear about the need for affirmative action or about the growing numbers of white supremacist groups. In order to appease our collective conscious, we put aside the disturbing fact that racism is alive and well in the great U.S.A. It hides in the workplace, it subtly shows its ugly face in the media, and it affects the education of minority students nationwide. In the following excerpts from an interview with a middle class African American male, the reader will find strong evidence that race plays a major role in determining the type and quality of education a student receives.

Introduction: I have learned a multitude of concepts during this quarter that will linger with me for years to come, the two that resonate the most, for me, are classism and racism. Classism and Racism are the two most prominent “ISM’S” due to their relationship and how they intermingle disparities and biases of being poor and a minority. Although I knew of the issues taking place in my own community, I would not allow myself to absorb the magnitude of this travesty. After watching the American winter, the disparities became clearer than I had dreamt.

]A second way that this class has challenged me was through the social justice project. For our social justice project, we had to pick a group that was underrepresented and seek to learn more information about them and share the new information with our classmates. My group chose to learn more about learning disability. One part of our project was to interview someone that represent this group. Finding someone that was opening to share their story with a class of stranger was very hard. They had to be able to trust in us that will would share their story in the right way and bring notice to something that society tends stray away from. This project was very hard for me at first. I want to be respectful of the issue and also show that I was

Although America is stereotyped to be the land of opportunity and prosperity for all, there are flaws in the system that impedes all races, genders, and social classes from being a part of the privileged society that can enjoy these rights. The word privilege refers to those who do not face discrimination in this country, in fact, many times they are the ones discriminating, and they are part of group that can prosper freely without any of the limitations that society establishes. However, it would a hasty generalization to infer that all those who are included in that privileged society discriminate against minorities in this country; yet, it is unlikely to encounter a white, middle class, straight man that lacks easy access to all the opportunities America has to offer. Women on the other hand, regardless of their color, race, or wealth, do continue to face discrimination in a relatively modern country. In a like manner, minorities such as Hispanics currently living in the United States also face endless and difficult obstacles to obtain the opportunities this country offers such as: rising from a social class, attending college, and working in a professional environment. A stronger example of inequality in America can be seen through the social classes. The New York Times published an article on January 6, 2016 outlining several of the most significant challenges Americans could expect in 2016. The inequality in social classes was a repetitive challenge that appeared

This article relates to our class by demonstrating the racial friction in America. In thinking that the increase in diversity as threatening to the status quo, it is unsurprising that white people feel threatened and treated unfairly. This perceived unfairness leads to racism and sexism in and out of the workplace. Which, in turn,

Institutional Racism in American Society "Racist" and "racism" are provocative words in American society. To some, these words have reached the level of curse words in their offensiveness. Yet, "racist" and "racism" are descriptive words of a reality that cannot be denied. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans (people-of-color) live daily with the effects of both institutional and individual racism. Race issues are so fundamental in American society that they seem almost an integral component. Some Americans believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities. Some Americans behave as if racial differences produce inherent

Initially when I think about who I am, my first thought does not go to race. I would describe myself as kind, hardworking, and outgoing. I would describe myself as a college student, and a middle school teacher in training. I would describe myself as conservative. More importantly, I am a Christian. I do not know why being white, and a female would not be in my immediate bio. According to the Colorblindness article, “Paying attention to the cultural experience of students is becoming increasingly important, given the differences between the demographics of American students and their teachers.” I believe that in my mind I may have over looked my racial status because I am slightly colorblind. It is not intentional, but race is

There is a bigger picture to race and ethnicity affecting an individual's social class which is their income and education. These factors determine their whole future, you can’t have one without the other considering income and education are hand in hand. Now it is about becoming more than about race, and now has become more about the education each race receives or is able to receive.

The United States has often times been illustrated as a melting pot where different cultures assimilate into one diverse, cohesive whole. However, this metaphor is not completely accurate today. Despite how diverse the country may be, social stratification can enforce normalized identities upon those in society who differ in social capital.

Throughout my life, I believed that everyone is equal. Since America is known as the perfect nation of freedom, growing up I thought that every person gets a fair chance to pursue whatever he/she would like. It was not until the Trayvon Martin travesty that I had an epiphany; we, as African American, are not equal to other citizens of this nation. No, it was much more beyond that; black people were considered subpar to the “superior” white citizens of our so-called “perfect” country. Once I found this out, I researched more information because the situation we are currently in is one we must know more about if we want to move forward. Joining the Black Lives Matter group through social media truly educated me more about the race problem our nation is in. The police brutality, the constant way the media portrays black people, redlining and gentrification, etcetera, was an eyeopening experience for me. However, my true shock was watching a documentary on Netflix, titled The 13th. It was a documentary explaining mass incarceration within the United States and A.L.E.C. becoming exposed for their ways. Before that documentary, I was aware of the mass incarceration dilemma, but I never fully grasped the severity of the situation. It was at that moment after watching the documentary, The 13th, the weight of this issue sank in, allowing me to understand the role our own government played in this and became my introduction on mass incarceration and its hold on the black

In this documentary it started off by saying “All men are created equal “,Yes we are all creation of God ; however this is not what have been shown throughout the course of history. There is always competition of who is superior or inferior base on the skin color, hair texture of an individual, or national origins. We humans are always looking for a way to gain control of each other and put down what they would call an inferior being. Furthermore, society started to construct a story call “Race”. In the documentary they said that, race is just an idea, it is constructed by society to further certain political or economic goals. What fascinated me the most in this documentary is Thomas Jefferson who was an American founding father and also the principal author of the Declaration of independence who said all men are created equal but yet wasn’t referring to the black people as equal? He also owned a lot of slave. What I can’t really grasp is how someone can write such thing as all men are created equal but yet see the black so different. In his journal he wrote that “black are inferior to white both in body and mind.” In the documentary they also said that he was the first person to articulate the theory of race in the United States. If it wasn’t for this documentary I wouldn’t have known he was a slave owner, because in my history class all they really talked about was how he was one of the founding father and wrote the declaration of independence. They never mentioned that

Going into this unit, I was apprehensive. I had never really talked about race in a classroom setting. I did not know how comfortable I was with talking about race in a large group of people. After this unit, I felt a ton more comfortable talking about race, which I think is going to be very helpful going into high school. Although I found the entire unit very interesting and enlightening, I thought that the words to use activity and documentary episodes one and two were really important in furthering my understanding of race and how to talk about race.

While the struggle between the classes has been around for hundreds of years, the struggles of those with diverse ethnoracial backgrounds have been around for thousands of years. However, I have been lucky enough to not have to deal with any issues with my race or ethnicity, even though I have faced struggles in the class that I am in. While I come from a white family, my family also ranks in as the working-class, just below middle-class. My race and my class have both led me to be the person I am today, which I am grateful for, though, because of my class, it will take a lot of work and time to get me to where I want to be in the future. Both my whiteness and my working-class status have impacted my life in differing ways; being white has opened a lot of advantages and has given me privilege, however, the lower-middle class has shut down some advantages given to me because of my race.

Sex and gender and Race and ethnicity were two topics that really stood out to me during the course of this class. The reason those topics caught my attention was because I didn’t realize how unaware I was of all of the social problems surrounding those topics still going on today. I assumed we had already conquered racism and sexism in the 21st century with the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King jr., the 19th amendment granting women the right to vote, and women’s rights movements in the 1960s. But I was clearly blind to the amount of institutional sexism and racism that still take place in education systems, athletics, the workplace, media, health care systems etc. Such as girls receiving less teacher attention and less useful feedback than boys, girls not being seen as strong enough for certain sports, workers of color being concentrated in lower-paying jobs, members of ethnoracial minorities are less likely to have access to health insurance etc. I was fascinated with looking at the most common environments with a fresh pair of eyes and a different outlook on everyday life. Seeing how different the world I conjured up in my head is from reality was a wake up call for me to be more conscious of the unequal world we live in as well as the start of curiosity to understand how the world we live in works and why.

The first thing I learned in this course was how differently our culture in the United States treats people based on sex, race, and class (Rothenberg, 2014). Each of these things can be broken down into two categories: Sex as male and female, race as white and colored, and class as rich and poor (because let’s face it, the middle-class is a dying breed). Even though my brother had two of the three advantageous characteristics “necessary” to make it through life in America, he was missing what white