The Role Of Prejudice And Discrimination In America

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.

Across the nation, millions of Americans of all races turn on the television or open a newspaper and are bombarded with images of well dressed, articulate, attractive black people advertising different products and representing respected companies. The population of black professionals in all arenas of work has risen to the point where seeing a black physician, attorney, or a college professor are becoming more a common sight. More and more black people are holding positions of respect and authority throughout America today, such as Barack Obama, Colin Powell, Condelezza Rice and many other prominent black executives. As a result of their apparent success, these black people are seen as role models for many Americans, despite their race.

An American is a man, a woman, a child who came to the U.S. and started to grow and flourish to become the men and women that feel pride for their country and the freedoms they have through salutes to the country and leaving behind their past heritage to become a citizen of the U.S. We as Americans have very well tried to become who we are today by not being prejudice and not being without freedoms. We strive to be the best we can by saying our pledge of allegiances and our doing as much as we can for our country. Just as my grandfather does every morning by saluting of the flag always hanging in his yard up high.

I was born and raised in Europe. I have learned from my history books that there were freedom and equality in the United States. I learned that, among many other rights, people enjoy freedom of religion and freedom of speech - the rights that were envied by millions of people of the Eastern Block countries.

In this modern world, prejudice is still a universal problem we still have yet to overcome. Although it is true that our society is much less prejudiced than it was 40-50 years ago, we are still struggling to create racial harmony in a world that is so diverse in terms of racial group, sexual orientations, ethnicity, nationality, religions, and so on. I think the core of prejudice comes from stereotyping, which is the generalization of motives, characteristics, or behavior to an entire group of people. In the world where media propaganda is ubiquitous, often times most stereotypes are not formed on valid experiences, instead they are based on images publicized by the mass media, or even created within our heads after seeing and hearing examples from many different sources, like movies, or even hearsay. Stereotyping is more powerful than we think, because it allows those false pictures to control our thinking that leads us to assign uniform characteristics to any person in a group, without consideration of the actual difference between members of that particular group.

Most people in today’s society may believe that prejudice and discrimination mean the same thing and most people may not pay attention to the fact that there is a huge difference between the two terms. The main difference between these terms is, prejudice is a negative idea about a certain group of people or people of a particular race. The person usually doesn’t act on the idea, they mainly just keep it to themselves. Most would describe it as being a “pre-judgement”. Discrimination, on the other hand, is far much worse than just being prejudice. Discrimination is prejudice put into action/practice. This involves treating people harmfully and disrespecting them as an individual just because they don’t look like you or because they belong to a specific group of people. There are three different forms of discrimination and they are: Individual Discrimination, Statistical Discrimination, and Institutional Discrimination. Both of these terms falls under the category, racism. Racism is the most talked about thing in the United States today. I completely disagree with the term “racism” as a whole and I completely disagree that it is being taught. Blacks and whites of the United States should always be against racism. Racism is not something that we are born with--it is something that we are taught and honestly society, parents, teachers, and movies play a big role in it. Some can teach it the right way and some can teach it the wrong way, and this is where we went wrong in

If there is one thing I have noticed during my, admittedly, short sixteen years, it is the racial discrimination and obvious bigotry of the those who are not "white". Stereotypes and detrimental comments are slung every which way. Others, rely on subtle jabs while some are oblivious to the offense of the people they are around.

Although many things of the past have been changed and improved greatly, there are still situations and people that prove that discrimination and inequality still exist in America today even after the Civil Rights Movement. One way America has changed for the good is that it is now not uncommon to see a person of color as the President, apart of the congregation, married to a white individual or having the same type of jobs as white men and women. America now offers same sex marriage which would have been considered taboo during the time before the Civil Rights Movement. There are no longer separate schools, hotels, grocery stores or housing developments found in America where you have to be a certain skin color to be able to obtain access

The example is always black. A statement that pretty much summed up what 's wrong with America today. Every time you turn on the news, you see something negative about minorities. The white population commits the same crimes and the minorities, but the minorities are I totally agree with Marc Lamont Hill 's views on the racism that still exists in the world. Minorities are unfairly targeted on a regular basis. Whether they are unfairly treated in the workplace,school systems, or by the police department, it seems to be getting worse every day. The recent rash of police shooting of unarmed minorities is clear evidence of this.

Hate and prejudice among people has been there all along human history. In the United States, it continued with those who hold the majority of resources and power and control the social institutions, government, education and business. But we can say that the United States has taken a leap toward changes that can be view as optimistic of acceptance of everybody despite everyone’s differences. The vast majority of citizens have a progressive positive interaction with people of different cultures and ethnicities. But there are small extremist groups that have the means and know how to manipulate information to induce fear in people’s minds about someone who is different. The people in power in the nation who fear of losing that power create

Strong racism, disrespect and condescending sight towards black people, immigrants or any other race apart from white´s was very common in the United states during the sixties. The society had wide gaps and divisions between most of all black and white people, but also between men and women, rich and poor to name a few. There was rules that only the black people had to follow, shops and buses. The living conditions were bad, a lot of black people were poor due to bad jobs and living arrangements.

The United States is considered one of the countries that have more immigrants in the world. Also, is considered as one of the countries that treat their population equally. According to Teresa Welsh, in 2013 North America has 989,900 immigrants, leading the U.S to be the top country for having more migrants. However, immigrants are facing discrimination and racism in this country.

There are many different reasons why people are racist and groups of people who are racist. One type of reason of why someone might be racist are how they were raised. Another reason someone might be racist is what they choose to believe in when they get older and form their own option.

The world has operated on a mixture of hate and envy. The United States alone has continuously had issues of prejudice – which contradicts what the nation stands for. America symbolizes the freedom, equality, and peace that people worked so hard to attain. With racial hatred and discrimination lingering in our communities, love and the principles that were fought for have not seen the light of day. It goes unnoticed by an overwhelming majority, yet there are groups of people that see this phenomenon daily and try to spread awareness. Love has the ability to fix long-lasting problems, but society’s ignorance and greediness gets in the way and clouds our understanding of how to deal with situations. A universal flaw in the human condition is

So why did I feel afraid when I went to Arizona and people stared at me?