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Essay about racial inequality

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Some people define race as if it is something solid or concrete, but what they don’t see is that it is a “social fabrication”(Mathew Desmond, Mustafa Emibayer,2009;2). Race is based on the difference in physical appearance which is determined, for example, by the most apparent trait; skin color. Inequality emerges when people living, whether on the same sovereign terrain or across continents, are not treated with the same amount of respect and not given the chance to engage their rights in a free and fair manner. Race and inequality are often linked together because of the “issues that began in the 1800s”(NFB;Journey to Justice;2000) such as racial segregation. Over the years issues of race and inequality have …show more content…

Colored people during that period were not just facing racial segregation but also, they faced serious poverty. For example in the documentary “Journey to Justice”(NFB,2000), black people lived in a city called, purposely “Afric Ville” which was basically the sewer, dump and garbage of all the other regions. Footage of little kids playing in the garbage were shown, which draws upon racial inequality because in fact, Afric Ville was just outside Halifax were whites dominated and actually lived a pretty decent life full of wealth, health and education. “In other words, though they are in a similarly precarious economic position as poor Blacks, poor Whites still experience race-based privileges, while poor Blacks are oppressed not only by poverty but also by racism”( Mathew Desmond, Mustafa Emibayer,2009;14-15)
Yes racism and racial segregation has declined but when we face the facts, it is still there. “Today, segregation is due to a legacy of racism as well as present-day practices rather than the result of race-neutral individual choices or people’s desire to “live with their own kind.”(Jeff Dowd;2011;1) But how did racism and racial segregation decrease?
It all started in the early 1900s when the Canadian constitution had the word “may” separate blacks and whites(NFB,2000). Discrimination was allowed in the 1920s when black were rejected from hospitals, proper housing and were not accepted in any other job but working on the rail road

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