Segregation, Racism, And Racism

In the 1960’s, black and white individuals were not recognized as being equal. The two races were treated differently, and the African Americans did not enjoy the same freedoms as the whites. The African Americans never had a chance to speak their mind, voice their opinions, or enjoy the same luxuries that the white people attained. Through various actions/efforts like the lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and bus boycotts, the black people confronted segregation face on and worked to achieve equality and freedom.

In recent years and in light of recent tragedies, police actions, specifically police brutality, has come into view of a large, public and rather critical eye. The power to take life rests in the final stage of the criminal justice system. However, the controversy lies where due process does not. While the use of deadly force is defined and limited by departmental policies, it remains an act guided chiefly by the judgment of individual officers in pressure situations. (Goldkamp 1976, 169). Many current studies have emphasized the racial disparities in minority deaths, primarily black Americans, killed by police through means of deadly force. The history of occurrences reveals the forlorn truth that police reforms only receive attention in wake of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct. The notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots brought the matter to mass public attention and prompted improved law enforcement policy. Significant local reforms resulted, for instance, ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. Additionally, on a broader platform, in 1994, Congress approved provisions to the Crime Control Act in effort to tackle police abuse in a more structured way.

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

“I can’t breathe.” A white police officer holds unarmed African American, Eric Garner, in a chokehold for fifteen seconds on the streets of New York City. Ultimately, Garner utters eleven times for the officer to stop before he died of strangulation, only for selling loose cigarettes. Justice is about being fair and equal. Across America, the African American community has been suffocated of their unalienable rights, just like Eric Garner, by prejudices and racism within white police officers.

I decided that while this was something common and had backing maybe I should do more digging before bringing it up with anyone else. So, I decided to try a different approach, I copied all the patient files, then ran them through a program that sorted them by race. Now I didn’t think this would go anywhere as the country is now much more integrated than it was during the time period any of the articles or books I found were written in. Imagine my surprise when I find that the repeat visits from minority races all have issues such as insecurity in their job and social life, many of them seem to have a dislike for how they look or act at times and they let this control them but then they dislike themselves even more and some of them have inferiority

As children we are taught to love and accept other, however, this is not always the case. More often than not we never taught to love those different from us, instead we go on through life only loving those who are similar to us, our unintentional intolerance remaining uncorrected. Growing up without that nurturing hand teaching us to live in a world that is far more diverse than it has ever been, leaves us as intolerant and uneducated adults, whether it is, or is not, by our own doing. In American society, time and time again, the failure to practice what is preached in our so-called values has been our only success. From the segregation of African-Americans to the oppression of Women, and now the fearful and sometimes violent discrimination against LGBTQ oriented individuals is the nation’s most recent atrocity. By standardizing the image of what love and the human identity is to a typical heterosexual individual, society is limiting the diversity of the nation and degrading the lives of so many valuable people. What’s more is the fact that this intolerance that is permeating all levels of society is almost centralized in the most significant aspect of any society: its schools. Schools everywhere are ignoring the high concentration of LGBTQ discrimination by their students and even faculty. It is extremely hard to believe that this kind of behavior is tolerated in schools, not to mention the fact of its being taught in churches all across the nation. With

Race is invisible to white, because they don’t have to think about it. When white people are in poverty, they never think to consider their skin color as a factor to why they are. Whites are mostly oblivious to this happening in general, because it does not happen to them.

During the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama was considered to be one of the most racially divided cities in the United States despite the city's population of approximately 350,000 people and 60 percent being white and 40 percent being African Americans. Birmingham, Alabama’s law enforcement, firefighters, salesperson in department stores, school bus drivers, bank tellers, and cashiers had no employed African Americans. African Americans who were secretaries were not allowed to work for white professionals. Many jobs available for African Americans consisted of manual labor in factories, provided maid and yard services, or working in other African American neighborhoods. Jobs that had to lay off employees for whatever reasons would often lay

Segregation caused distress and anger between the races in America. Jim Crow laws segregated blacks and whites all throughout America. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) backed desegregation of public places 100% (Stokes 80). After the reconstruction period was over, America had extreme economical and industrial growth (“Racial Segregation” 2). Brown vs. Board also helped desegregate America in schools. Segregation affected many people in many ways and created violence and distress between blacks and whites within the country.

Racial segregation has been embedded in southern society ever since the birth of the America. However, even though documents such as Brown vs. Board of Education and the fourteenth amendment has been instituted into the constitution, we are still facing racial segregation throughout America that is unconstitutional and unjust. The south of America, especially Alabama, are facing several claims of racial tension in their prison system and their way to solve the tension between the black and white population is through segregation. The prison system has faced a lot of backlash, as 65% of their inmates consist of African Americans and 35% of them consist of white Americans. From time to time there has been violent encounters between white and black Americans, which have led to many unfortunate deaths. In order to simmer down the tension, the prison system thought it would be necessary to isolate inmates by race. The decision of segregation in Alabama’s prison system takes us back into history, when African Americans’ faced separate but equal law (Plessey vs. Ferguson) that separated whites from blacks in public facilities. This action is total nonsense and Alabama’s governing systems needs to find methods in which can diversify black and white American’s together to unify with each other through actives and interactions.

Bradley, Stefan. "Watching Jim Crow: The Struggles over Mississippi TV, 1955-1969." The Journal of African American History 90.1-2 (2005): 171+. World History Collection. Web. 31 Aug. 2015.

When the civil war ended, there were two plans as to how to readmit the rebellious southern states back into the union. President Lincoln’s ten percent plan was by far the more lenient of the two, while the plan that congress wanted was much more oppressive. Both the north and the south had been ravaged by the war, and tension still ran high between them.

The issue, Racism and segregation in sports. The answer, Jackie Robinison. “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives,” a quote by Jackie Robinson. Jack Roosevelt Robinson, born on January 31st, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. His mother Mallie and his father Jerry were sharecroppers at the time and lived on a plantation. Jerry Robinson made just about $12 dollars a month which was not enough to support a total of five children. Jerry went to his boss and was allowed the opportunity to become a half-cropper which means that he gains profit off of the produce. This allowed him to gain a higher income and therefore provide for his family. Six months after Jackie’s birth, his father went to go visit his brother in Texas and never returned. They soon found out that Jerry had actually ran away with the neighbors wife. To this day Jackie has no idea what became of his father but could only look at him with disdain because he asked himself what type of man would leave his wife and 5 kids to fend for themselves in such an oppressive time period? Jackie and his family then moved to Pasadena, Ca. When his family moved, Jackie’s mother, with help from her niece, moved into a white neighborhood. Manfred Weidhorn noted in his biography, Jackie Robinson, "Jackie was proud of his mother, who would not allow the white neighbors to drive her away or frighten her or mistreat her kids. From her he learned to stand up for his rights. He learned to respect himself, demand

To understand the issue of racial segregation in the United States, we need to remember about the process of country formation. We know that the United States was formed, initially, by British settlers, who gave rise to the Thirteen Colonies in the east coast of the country. However, the colonies of the South had a development different from those of the North. While in the North there was a model of small private ownership, with free work and wage labor, and the development of industry. On the other hand, in the South, the most common model was the large land ownership and monoculture, which characterizes the so-called plantation. In this model, contrary to what was practiced in the North, the use of slave labor was set, more precisely of

Race in America has been a conscientious objective since the beginning of time. Individuals of different hues perpetuate the racial spoils system which vigorously rejects the Martin Luther King theory of a color blind society. Throughout history, the criterion of which racism has stemmed has evolved vastly, yet it’s probably more of an issue in today’s current events than ever before. Through researched data I was able to create a census for this so called issue with race in America. This research project will be an expository of three valid sources which perceive race in America through differential diagnosis. The dogma of race has logical consequences that are profoundly important. If blacks, for example, are equal to whites in every way, what accounts for differential success levels or other factors? Since any theory of racial differences has been outlawed, America must be racked with a pervasive and horrible understanding of the concept of race since it has a deeper literal meaning than phenotypically. Through this textual evidence I plan to educate the ignorant of the many obstacles faced that go unseen or unheard in the Black community of America.