Summary Of I 'M Black, Who's Innocent' By Richard Steele

In a speech, Frederick Douglass stated “[t]here are seventy-two crimes…which, if committed by a black man…subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.” While that is not the case today, racism continues to be an important and urgent issue in the United States. Although the shadow of racism continues to haunt Americans, race relations among people in America have slowly improved. From the active practice of institutional racism during the 19th and early 20th century, the spike in criticism against institutionalized racism during the Civil Rights Movement, and the dissolution of racial barriers in the past two decades, the wane of racial tension in America is evident.

Racism will always be an issue and will always be considered inevitable due to society. Racism is said to be morally wrong because no one is born racist, they are taught. The ideals of a group are thought to be forms of extrinsic racism which lead to morally problematic intentions. Utilitarianism is ultimately the one way to prevent the consequences and effects of racism, as Kantian ethics follow it up by defining its moral rule.

The content of Taylor’s essay is based upon his negative experiences with racism, presented through anecdotes taken from his life. Though these experiences provide support for his arguments there is an overabundance of facts and a lack of

The black race has faced many hardships throughout American history. The harsh treatment is apparent through the brutal slavery era, the Civil Rights movement, or even now where sparks of racial separation emerge in urbanized areas of Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit. Black Americans must do something to defend their right as an equal American. “I Am Not Your Negro” argues that the black race will not thrive unless society stands up against the conventional racism that still appears in modern America. “The Other Wes Moore” argues an inspiring message that proves success is a product of one’s choices instead of one’s environment or expectations.

For example, in an article titled “Inequality, Race, and Remedy” for The American Prospect, Alan Jenkins states “Poor people of color are also increasingly more likely than whites to find themselves living in high-poverty neighborhoods with limited resources and limited options” (Jenkins). This illustrates that an individual’s race can completely affect their home, job, financial situation, and overall way of life. According to this article, person of color has a higher chance at living in poverty than a white person does. This example shows that colored people aren’t given as many opportunities and as a result, it may be harder for them to succeed in life. The oppression they face is all because of the color of their skin, not because they are any less smart or human than others. The poor lifestyle is a result of racial identification and false labeling. People automatically stereotype and judge black people because of their skin color and often times it has a negative outcome.

Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.

First and foremost, Shelby Steele starts off with an appeal to logic. Steele offers specific evidence of the harmful effects regarding affirmative action for example “ But it is the music of innocence and power that we hear in affirmative action that causes us to cling to it and to its distracting emphasis on representation.” This quote uses an appeal to logic to express why people are still persisting on using it. When people think of affirmative action they tend to believe that colleges need more representation, but really when Colleges are asking to recruit people of color and insert diversity into their college, they only want the “cosmetic diversity that covers the blemish of disparity.” These quotas are not actually effective in helping blacks be progressive for their future and education “Only 26 to 28 percent of blacks graduate from college.” Shelby Steele wants young blacks to take action for their education, rather than being a diversity trophy at college. Steele is motivated to help start a change in how blacks are educated, because the amount of black students that are graduating in a six year term is too low. Shelby then connects this to race because this results in “ an artificial diversity that gives the appearance of an educational parity between black and white students that has not been achieved in reality.” An artificial diversity is what is making this situation a crisis. When a school ask for

“What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” (Coates). This powerful quote exemplifies the mistreatment of blacks in America as something that has been prevalent throughout our nation’s history and is still present in our contemporary world. Our national founding document promised that “All men are created equal”. As a nation we have never achieved the goal of equality largely because of the institution of slavery and its continuing repercussions on American society.

The election of Barack Obama as the 56th president of the United States raised many hopes that the “Black struggles” was finally over. For conservatives, Obama victory reassured their beliefs that there was no longer such thing as racism and that every American had equal rights and opportunity to pursue the American dream. While many people have come to believe that all races have equal rights in America, Tim Wise argues in his documentary “White Like Me” that not only does racism and unconscious racial bias still exist, but that also White Americans are unable to simply relate to the variety of forms racism and inequality Blacks experience. This is mainly because of the privileges they get as the “default.” While Wise explores the variety forms of racism and inequality today such as unconscious racism, Black poverty, unemployment, inadequate education system, and prison system, the articles by the New York Times Editorial Board, the Human Rights Watch (HRW), and Adam Liptak further explore some the disparities in the criminal justice system. Ana Swanson points out in her article, “The Stubborn Persistence of Black-White Inequality, 50 Years after Selma” that while the “U.S. has made big strides towards equal rights,” significant gaps still remains between the two races. With the Supreme Court striking down a “portion of the Voting Rights Act that stopped discriminatory voting laws from going into effect in areas of the country with histories of disenfranchisement,” civil

Discrimination has afflicted the American society since its inception in 1776. The inferiority of the African American race – a notion embedded within the mindset of the white populace has difficult to eradicate – despite the efforts of civil rights activists and lawmakers alike. Many individuals are of the opinion that discrimination and racism no longer exist and that these issues have long since been resolved during the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. However such is not the case. Discrimination is a complex issue – one that encompasses many aspects of society. The impact of discrimination of the African American race is addressed from two diverse perspectives in the essays: “Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King .

The article “I’m Black, You’re White, Who’s Innocent?’ is an analysis of the black and white racist situation that America has been facing. It is a claim to the fact that both the groups have created the racist situation. Some whites accept that the racist attitude that enforced slavery was due to the fact that whites in ‘innocence’ felt they were superior to blacks. The pursuit of power-convinced them they were entitled to it. Once convinced it was easy to believed in innocence. Conversely, they were

Understanding that the poverty of black Americans did not just stay within the home is a big step in understanding urban poverty. Urban poverty reached outside the home, into the parks, schools and playgrounds. With poverties reach being that extensive, there was something other than adversity causing this. Louis Gates wrote an article about this called “Black America and The Class Divide.” (Jr.)

Despite changes in the landscape for treatment of ethnic minorities in the United States over the past 200 years, issues with racism has never stopped being an issue and continues to tarnish and tatter the very fabric of our nation. There has been a history of violence against Black people that dates back 400 years, to a time when the first slave was forcefully brought here to the USA (Rogers, 2015). From that time on, people of African descent have been dehumanized and treated as second-class citizens and this has become an ongoing community issue (Diversi, 2016). Racial classification was created as a way to condone slavery and maintain the primacy of the white race (Tolliver, Hadden, Snowden, & Manning, 2016). Aymer (2016) explains that the Critical Race Theory (CRT) provides a way to understand that the violence that Blacks face in America originates from the societal belief in White superiority and, when trying to understand the Black reality, centuries of racial oppression must be discussed (Aymer, 2016). CRT acknowledges that racism is primarily a problem in America and has contributed to the social disparities in the U.S. In addition, it notes other forms of oppression that are important to discuss and work through. CRT does not believe in the legal rhetoric that there is an impartial, equal way of dealing with individuals in the community that has nothing to do with color and everything to do with achievement and hard work. It also takes on an interdisciplinary

An underclass does not exist in the United States. It is a function of conservative’s imaginations. The relevance of their creating of an underclass serves one large purpose and that is to be an emotional ploy to keep people politically occupied with small issues. This allows corporations to ensure that their competition will be busy fighting other battles while they continue to push policy and laws that will represent the interests of the country’s wealthiest and most powerful. A distraction is necessary because if people knew their rights and wages were threatened chaos would erupt upon large corporations. The facts are that there is no underclass, this myth is being used to politically divide the working class, for the purpose of weakening the advancement of working class interests.

In any situation a black person can be innocent but will remain guilty until there is enough evidence to prove that they are free of charge. Not only that but “She like most everyone wants me to feel guilty. Wants me to show some contrition, to break down in tears, to save the state some money and her embarrassment of sharing my blackness.” (Beatty 17) The author shows that within internalizing stereotyping he as a black man is expected to feel as if he is guilty, and he supposed to give into the courts and let them take advantage of him. But he doesn’t “that omnipresent guilt that’s as black as fast-food apple pie and prison basketball is finally gone, and it feels almost white to be unburdened from the racial shame…” This supports the claim that internalizing stereotyping can be help and harmful with in its implications and you have a choice to internalize