Racism

Racism has been hindering blacks’ growth and development in American society for centuries. The common misconception that exists in the year 2006 is that racism was in the past and that it is not a major issue anymore. People looking from the outside in probably think that race relations are at an all-time best because of the apparent improvement in relations betweens blacks and whites. Racism is not seen so easily; people have to look “between the lines.” The system that impeded black progress in the 1960’s is still in power. Elementary and high school education only teaches what the government wants the youth to know, not what the youth needs to know. The government allows the educational system to teach about the non-violent Martin Luther King, Jr., but not the “radical” Malcolm X. The powerful people in Washington, D.C., do not want the youth to learn about someone who was willing to stand up and fight back. The school system is completely prejudiced. The media is also crooked; it constantly makes false and out of context reports. The news unnecessarily displays minorities in a negative manner frequently. A prime example is during Hurricane Katrina; when the media over-reported shootings and rapes among black evacuees in New Orleans. The government’s system is set up to make life for blacks more difficult than it needs to be in many ways; some of which are by controlling the educational systems and the media. Racism will never disappear because of the government’s biased system, slanted educational system, and the unscrupulous media.

Events such as Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, magnify the government’s carelessness toward black Americans. The government’s performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was completely inadequate and lackadaisical. Most minorities in the United States believe that the government’s behavior would have been completely different had most of the victims been white, and that is a perception this writer completely agrees with. Hurricane Katrina exposed the levels of poverty, inequality, and racism that continue to affect the majority of blacks here in the United States. The tragedy in New Orleans opened the eyes of most Americans and revealed to them that racism and racial bias do indeed still exist in this country. Not only did the government act unusually, the media also did. Every time the cameras showed blacks taking something, the blacks were supposedly looting. When whites were doing the same thing, the media said they were finding things. The media also over-reported the rapes and shootings that went on in order to dehumanize those victims left behind. In this writer’s opinion, the media has an alliance with the government. People who think racism has disappeared probably thought that at least the government made progress and at the end gave a helping hand. People with that mindset probably thought this way because a hundred and fifty years ago the government did little or nothing to help at all. Racism in the year 2006 has not ceased to exist; it still lives in a subtle manner. The characteristics of racism today are similar to those in the North back in the 1960’s, people would smile in one’s face, but then stab one in the back when he or she turned around.

During the last three or four years, racism and harassment toward people from the Middle East has dramatically increased. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, started a downward spiral in race relations for people from the Middle East. The businesses owned by these foreigners have been vandalized, burned, and completely destroyed. The media had a big effect on racism toward Middle Easterners. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan blamed the media for failing to report that most Muslim groups were against the terrorists and the media promoting “Islamophobia.” This writer recalls watching the news on 9/11, and it showing people in the Middle East celebrating and dancing around when they saw the attacks on television. Watching that news report made this writer sick to his stomach. How can people celebrate the fact that so many innocent lives were lost because of the hate toward the United States that was provoked by those rich people sitting comfortably in the White House? In the days that followed 9/11, this writer knew of a Middle Easterner getting beaten and harassed like never before here in the United States. Racism toward these foreigners is displayed on a daily basis when they are subject to intense scrutiny in airports and elsewhere. Many accusations of racial profiling have been made, and this writer believes that they are true. If ninety percent of terrorist attacks worldwide are made by Muslims, the natural reaction of a security guard is to question most of the Muslims he or she sees. Discrimination toward a different culture is created as time passes. Arabs were not victims of racism in the United States as much as they are now.

Black students still fall victim to hate-crimes in today’s society. In December 2004, a report surfaced of black students in Marist College being victims of racially motivated attacks. Students say racial problems have persisted on campus, but the college has not done anything to regulate them. Racism in schools is a reoccurring issue around the world. Discussions about racism take place in many college classrooms all around the United States. According to Malcolm X, racism is a “relationship of domination and subordination based on skin color.” Cases of racism in colleges are saddening because these young adults are just trying to get an education and improve their status in society. Judging from this writer’s personal experiences, racism is a bigger issue in smaller, rural town than in largely populated cities. The majority of small, rural towns are very homogenous; nearly all of the residents are whites who are not used to diversity. Discrimination toward blacks occurs in those small towns most of the time. Small homogenous towns will never cease to exist, so for that reason, racism in the United States will never disappear. Most people do not find out about issues such as this one because the government does not want America to remain with the old racist image. This writer believes that the government controls the media, therefore, most Americans will never find out about certain issues.

At times, the most privileged children in the world cannot even get an education that teaches them properly about racism throughout history. Prince Harry, son of the late Princess Diana, wore a German swastika to a costume party. The Prince lives in Europe, and he still did not show enough sense to not wear a Nazi uniform to a party. You would think that a person with such a premier education would know what to wear. He should obviously know that he should not wear a swastika. If one of the wealthiest and most fortunate children in the world does not know about the massacres in the Holocaust, then most children in the world do not know about them. The Jews and the other people who were victimized by the Holocaust feel upset because their suffering has been forgotten to a certain extent. A Prince wearing a Nazi uniform is a prime example that the suffering of the victims has been slightly forgotten. The youth of today are the leaders of the future, and if they do not thoroughly know the deadly effects racism had in the past, how will people have an anti-racist world in the future? If the future leaders do not know about the past effects of mass racism, how do people expect racism to fade away in the future? The only possible way racism can ever be conquered, is if the world gets strong powerful leaders that will oppose racism and decide to make changes.

African-American lives should be viewed within context of their social conditions. Most whites will never have to live through the same struggles that the average black person lives through. The black ghettos were started when blacks from the South decided to move to cities in the early twentieth century. Black population in California boomed during World War II because of the abundance of jobs in the war industry. The war industry was forced to close after WWII was over, therefore, causing an unemployment problem for blacks in the United States. The blacks who migrated settled in the worst and poorest areas of the cities. Even after segregation was outlawed, whites made it hard for blacks to move to the better areas of the cities. Most blacks still live in the ghettos till this day. The lifestyle for blacks who live in the ghetto puts them at an automatic disadvantage when comparing them to people that do not. According to Edwin Sutherland’s Differential Association Theory, criminal and deviant behavior is learned like all other behaviors, in a process of communication with people. If a child grows up around criminals and delinquents, that will be the behavior he or she is going to learn. In the ghettos of the United States, blacks going to prison is a problem that is getting very typical, thus, posing less of an intimidation factor. Ten percent of black men end up going to prison, compared to three percent of Hispanic men, and one percent of white men. Even though blacks only represent nearly thirteen percent of the American population in 2006, they account for forty-four percent of the prison population in the United States. When a teen sees most of his friends and neighbors do time in prison, he or she is going to think that there is nothing wrong with that. The “thugs” living in the ghettos are affected tremendously by the lack of family support which is scarce in those neighborhoods. A large percentage of the youth in those poor neighborhoods grow up without a father figure, thus, they have a false sense of masculinity. The “thugs” then feel that they must prove their masculinity by acting tough and deviant. Blacks have a bad reputation about being “thuggish” and violent, but because of their lifestyle, it is not always their fault. The whites who have never met or seen blacks will probably believe the stereotypes and misconceptions about them. Those are the whites who probably have the strongest racist beliefs.

Can the world ever be free of racism? John McWhorter believes that racism will no longer exist when the concept of race is eliminated. McWhorter made many thoughtful and interesting points. McWhorter proclaims that in one hundred and fifty years, “humans are going to be so mixed up that the idea of black against white will be obsolete.” According to McWhorter, “Humans need to weed racism out of people’s psyches, uproot from institutions, and get bias out of folk’s hearts.” Even though this writer believes that racism will never disappear, he admits that McWhorter has very good ideas. If education worldwide works to remove racism from the minds of the youth, a world without racism might be possible. A world without racism will most like not happen in this writer’s opinion, because families teach their children certain values. If a family has been racist for generation after generation, racism will most likely be taught early in the lives of their children. Children will usually accept the teaching of their parents before they accept the teaching from school.

Malcolm X was one of the most important black figures of the twentieth century because of the ideas he preached to blacks all around the world. Malcolm’s legacy can be seen to a certain extent when looking around college campuses and seeing the growing rate of blacks attending. Malcolm told blacks to have self-pride and be proud of their African roots in a time when blacks were completely ashamed. Prior to Malcolm X publicly speaking, blacks were tought that Africans lived in jungles and swung from tree to tree. Malcolm preached to the blacks here in the United States that Africa was the first civilized region in the world. According to X, in West Asia, which is now Europe, the white man was living in a cave, while the black man was making innovations in Africa. Europe would not even be able to thrive without Africa because all of their natural resources have to pass through Africa when they come from Asia. Africa can put Europe in deep trouble if she decides to cut off Suez Canal which is in the northern tip of Africa. The American school system in the 1960’s, never taught black youth about Africa in that manner; it was part of the system to keep blacks feeling inferior. Some teachers in the South secretly and creatively taught blacks the truth, but in the North, this was rarely practiced. For that reason, the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that the North provided a better education for blacks. If blacks feel inferior, they will not take action to gain their freedom because they would feel like too much of an underdog. Blacks’ self-esteem would be low and they would not try to give a strong fight.

Racism has been a major worldwide issue, is, and always will be. The systems run by many governments around the world have always worked to favor the white race, and be detrimental to the black race. The government is damaging toward the black race whether it is through the educational systems, media, or even relief aid. The school systems in the United States only teach what they want the youth to learn. In elementary school, Malcolm X is never talked about to children because he was considered a radical leader when compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. The rich history of Africa was never taught to black students back during segregation in order keep them feeling inferior to the whites. The media plays games with people’s minds by reporting the wrong news. At the time of the floods in New Orleans, blacks were depicted as looting, when whites were doing the same thing, but they were supposedly finding things. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the government to took an inadequate amount of time to send relief aid to victims in the New Orleans region. The catastrophe proved that racism does still exist in an immense way. If the victims would have been white; they would have received aid much quicker.

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