Racism in the United States: Then and Now

Before delving into the core issue of racism, specifically in the United States in the 1940s and the current situation, it is necessary to sketch a transparent clear image of the idea of racism in the international socio-political sphere. It's a poor attempt to describe racism without defining race; however, racism can be characterized as "a social dominance ideology in which one or more racial groups' assumed biological or cultural superiority is used to justify or prescribe the inferior treatment or social roles of other racial groups" (Clair and Denis 857). Assumed examples of physical differentiation were used in the racialization process – for example, skin shade or eye shape – are utilized as distinctive apparatuses to separate sections of individuals, thus, constituting them as 'races'; racialization turns into bigotry when it includes the hierarchical and socially affecting valuation of racial groups. Racism is undoubtedly an anomaly in the fate of entire human civilization. From the given definition of racism, it is quite transparent that the racist looking glass not only segregates people on the basis of skin tone, rather other physiological structures are also considered as racist parameters. Racism does exist till date. Racism might have been diminished to some extent but it cannot be said that racism has been completely eradicated from the world. The USA is considered as a smaller version of the globe as it gives refuge to people from almost all the nooks of the world. Therefore, the pangs of racism have very often become very obvious and explicit here than any other part of the world. It is rather a paradoxical and unfortunate situation for the socio-political scenario in the USA to earn the disrepute of practicing racism, as the USA has always been a permanent home and source of living for people from almost all the nations of the world. Thousands of students arrive to the USA each year to pursue higher education as well. In spite of all these facts, earlier and during the decade of 1940s, racism reached into a pinnacle of unjust and intolerance. However, as the new millennia ushered in, racism started to reach a moderate rank. This paper would attempt to present a comparative analysis of racism in the USA by illuminating the elevated practice of racism in 1940s and the diminishing trait in it by 2017, with close reference to few research papers, and detailed factual anecdotal data supports, including references from news survey reports.

Although this paper focuses on the geographical and socio-political domains of the USA, if the notion of racism is assumed as the most important factor to be pondered upon, it could be trailed back in even the biblical allusions, especially Exodus – where Moses had to part the Red Sea for the redemption of the Israelites by freeing them from the shackles of slavery. It is true that oppression and precisely the heinous history of genocide and slavery have yielded to a great surge of racial animosity; but it cannot be approved flatly that only one certain race is unanimously preaching and have been practicing racism, while other races have fallen as victims to it.In antiquities, during the colonial expansions, slavery and other atrocities had yielded to racial bias and partisan outlook; but in the 20th century, e.g., the 1900s or the 1940s, constantly increasing migration is the key relevant factor that has kindled the embers of racism into wildfire and has engrossed the entire continent to a huge conflict.

The Great Depression era, increasing population and the imminent World War II, unswervingly created a mass ruckus among the populace of the USA. Hence, the scope of jobs

started to shrink drastically and the competition as well as contention among people reached to its pinnacle. This is how, the political and economic metamorphoses led to a huge sociological disorder and the seeds of racism, rather neo- racism spurred in during this period. The USA can never call itself a nation of only one particular race, as its aboriginal inhabitants have been almost annihilated by the colonizers. Therefore, no particular race is the correct claimant of this huge continent. If any particular race or group of people lives under this impression that the USA is their land of monopoly, then it is a sheer negligible reverie. It is about the diachronic acquisition of the nation that has yielded in the rise of racism. It means who came first and were more powerful, concluded upon ownership of all the facilities they were catered by the nation and did not want to share it with others. Few diachronic anecdotes from the concerned decades of 1940s and it is a priory or later situations may lead a focus to comprehend the kind of racism that was practiced.

Race revolt in New Orleans is started by a shoot-out between the police and a Negro worker. Twenty thousand individuals are drawn into the insurgency that kept going four days… Thomas Dixon, Jr. imparts his reaction to Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Leopard's Spots: An Historical Romance of the White Man's Burden, 1865-1900, a smash hit novel which acquaints the readership with the Negro predicaments and trauma, which the North incurred upon the South amid Reconstruction (“American Racial History Timeline”). “Florida–Miscegenation [Statute] Intermarriage” with a Negro, mulatto, or any individual with even a little Negro blood, should be rebuffed. Punishment: detention up to one decade or a fiscal penalty not exceeding than $1,000 (“American Racial History Timeline”). In no occasion might a Negro be qualified to take an interest in a Democratic gathering essential decision held in the State of Texas- Overturned in 1927 by US Supreme Court in Nixon v. Herndon (“American Racial History Timeline”). On the individual welcome of Eleanor Roosevelt, Marian Anderson sings at the Lincoln Memorial… Thomas Dixon, Jr. distributes his last novel, The Flaming Sword, which claims socialism and miscegenation undermine to obliterate America (“American Racial History Timeline”). The University of Pennsylvania, the most racially libertarian college in 1946, gloated just 40 Negroes out of an institutional enlistment of 9,000. Negro enlistment in the North and the West never surpassed 5,000 Negroes in the 1940s (“American Racial History Timeline”). Precluded intermarriage and dwelling together amongst whites and blacks or the relative of any Negro. Punishment: Imprisonment in the prison for two to seven years. Clergymen and judges of the peace confronted fines amongst $100 and $1,000 and could be detained in the province imprison for up to six months (“American Racial History Timeline”).

The above mentioned few anecdotal incidents carve out few apparatuses that were used by the state to make a stark segmentation between races, precisely the blacks and the whites. These anecdotes are dated till 1940, starting in 1900 (few only). However, soon after, World War II follows in, and the global scenario on everything around goes through various transformations drastically and sporadically. If read closely, it will become very explicit, how the ways of racist ideas changed in the changing times. Earlier the segregation was based flatly and mostly on skin color. Now, in the wartime the scenarios of racist practices changed in many aspects. Due to the political turmoil going through with Japan, the Japanese Americans started facing problems in the USA. They faced rampant internment, especially in the West Coast area. Therefore, one point is established that it is mostly the political power that regulates the social practices like racism.

It is true indeed that without the black people and their centuries of labor the USA would not have emerged as a superpower as it is today. The black people were brought along by their colonial masters to serve them and serve them silently without withholding in front of any kind of oppression. However, scenarios started to change to some extent, when the Civil Rights movement started. In the contemporary millennia, according to Seabrook and Nichol, “Students of the present time are regularly taught that the Civil Rights period introduced correspondence through the U.S. Supreme Court's verdict in Brown v. the Board of Education (1954), alongside the nullification of the Poll Tax by means of the 24th Amendment and the entry of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The discourse regularly shuns the excruciating pain and resistance against equivalent rights all through the South and the extreme struggle it took for claiming social equity, as expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), just as the Congress passed the social equality bills in the year of 1868 and declined to uphold it, the Congress passed a social liberties bill in the year 1964 and till date, even in today’s present time has neglected to implement it in its all possible aspects (25). However, it would be a too exaggerated statement to opine that Civil Rights movement was an absolute failure, but it is true that it could not earn what it aspired for.

The aim of this paper is not only to present an account of transformation in the forms of racism from 1940s to 2017; but to also enable the understanding of the politically inculcated doctrines that play with mass psychology and utilize them according to the authority’s convenience. As an example to support this statement, it could be mentioned that in the earlier part of 1970s, according to Wright and Rogers, because of the social equality development, the Republican Party under Nixon embraced what came to be known as the "Southern Strategy" in which racial feelings of dread were purposely used to get white regular workers voters to change political faithfulness from the Democrats to the Republicans. This procedure is acknowledged by numerous researchers for introducing a time of preservationist governmental issues which at last altogether hurt the financial interests of white laborers by debilitating unions, bringing down the lowest pay permitted by law, diminishing professional stability (3). Therefore, it becomes very evident that, it has always been the political strategies and propagandas that have created unrest among the populace, however, there might be few personal cases of enmities but those are negligible in the parameter of fatality. Civilians have always been used as political pawns by the politically powerful few.

As the paper moves into the current scenario regarding racist practices, it remains a glum fact that racism never ceased to exist. Recent statistics prove this statement as a bitter truth. Racism does not take place in one direction; it works both ways or has multi dimensions. In response to racist unjust hate crimes have accelerated in the recent times. As some surveys find, “Nearly half of all hate crimes committed in America have to do with race. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 47% of hate crimes are racially motivated. Second place, a tie between religion and sexual orientation, doesn't even come close, accounting for only 19% of hate crimes, respectively” (Noman). Instead of spreading messages that reinstate harmony and peace and help in abolishing racism many of the most powerful authorities in the USA are voicing just in opposite ways, by claiming to make America an entirely white nation. It is also proved from earlier and present instances of police actions that the other races are always treated in harsher ways, that could be testified from instances, such as Rodney King being beaten up that gave in to the incident of 1992 riots in Los Angeles, the Florida riots in 1980 is another such incident that cropped up from the death of Arthur McDuffie. These are just frugal glimpses of the actual circumstances. Surveys also reveal that, in most recent times the situations have not changed much, as “Unarmed black men are seven times more likely than whites to die by police gunfire, the Washington Post reports on police brutality targeted at black Americans. The report estimated that an unarmed black man was shot and killed by police every nine days in 2015” (Noman).

“Racism” today is a filthy word; yet, critical racial imbalances in financial security, holistic welfare, and similar positive requirements to humanity- endure discriminations. Racial minorities around the globe keep on reporting successive encounters with racial segregation; and racial flashpoints – from the current reaction to First Nations challenges in Canada, to the Trayvon Martin shooting and trial in the US, to progressing European civil arguments over movement change – proliferate. As opposed to just concentrating on unmistakable straight out antagonistic vibe or unequivocally supremacist laws and their belongings, a few sociologists have grown more nuanced understandings of what prejudice implies, how it works, and how it identifies with racial imbalance. These ideas incorporate the multidimensional 'new prejudices' (free enterprise, partially blind approaches etc..), systemic and institutional prejudice, and even oblivious or verifiable bigotry, which are regularly concentrated through investigations, review thinks about, basic talk investigation, and other creative systems. Other researchers shun thought of the best possible meaning of prejudice and rather look at the procedures that develop racial classifications, reactions to bigotry by truly underestimated bunches, and the (consider) techniques and (underestimated) schedules that replicate (or test) racial imbalances. From a pluralistic and practical outlook, it is advisable to proceed with consideration on all fronts. More prominent exchange between these intense research works ought to likewise prompt to development as researchers look to extension levels of examination and understand apparently opposing topics and patterns. Albeit a few researchers discredit the reasonable expanding of 'bigotry', the humanism of bigotry or racism is best served by this pluralism. As Western nations consolidate more "nonwhite" foreigners and racial limits crumple, change, and (re)emerge, researchers must utilize different ways to deal by picking up an extensive comprehension of the nature, causes, and outcomes of contemporary bigotry, racial separation, and racial imbalance. The present day USA is not free from the menace of racism, though the forms and expressions of racist outlooks have metamorphosed into a more post- modernist shaded projection. It must be perceived that discriminatory political, economic and social conditions can breed and cultivate prejudice, racial separation, xenophobia and related intolerance, which thus compound the disparity. It is ought to be comprehended that certifiable uniformity of chance for all, in all circles, including that for improvement, is central for the annihilation of bigotry, racial separation, xenophobia and related narrow mindedness. It must be comprehended that a democratic government should maintain clarity, be responsible and a participatory administration must stay receptive to the requirements and goals of the general population. It must keep regard for human rights, and the controls of law are fundamental requirements for the powerful counteractive action to abolish bigotry, racial separation, xenophobia and related prejudices. The administration must unequivocally understand that any type of exemption for wrongdoings persuaded by supremacist and xenophobic mentalities assumes a part in debilitating the governance of law in a democratic government; hence any lenient approach regarding a racist act, has a tendency to encourage the repetition of such wrongdoings. Therefore, conscious and constant efforts to abolish or at least curb the extension of racism are extremely necessary. Equal opportunity for all, irrespective of race, religion and culture with a harmonious and unequivocal approach from the state is the key to eradicate racism from USA as well as any part of the world.



Works Cited

“American Racial History Timeline, 1900- 1960.” Occidentaldissent.com, n.d., www.occidentaldissent.com/american-racial-history-timeline-2/american-racial-history-timeline-1900-1960/ Accessed March 15, 2017.

Clair, Matthew and Jeffrey S. Denis. “Sociology of Racism.” International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, vol. 19, 2015, pp. 857- 863.

Noman, Natasha. “Racism in America Today is Alive and Well- And These Stats Prove It.” News.Mic, 16 Apr 2016, mic.com/articles/140107/racism-in-america-today-is-alive-and-well-and-these-stats-prove-it#.6YN7unmXB Accessed March 15, 2017.

Seabrook, Renita and Heather Wyatt- Nichol. “The Ugly Side of America: Institutional Oppression and Race.” Journal of Public Management& Social Policy, vol. 23, 2016, pp. 20-27.

Wright, Erik Olin and Joel Rogers. “Racial Inequality.” American Society: How It Actually Works, n.d., www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/ContemporaryAmericanSociety/Chapter%2014%20--%20Racial%20inequality--Norton%20August.pdf Accessed March 15, 2017.Top of Form

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