Consider yourself driving home after a late shift at work or after leaving your kids off at school when you notice sirens flashing. You take a deep breath and feel a twinge of annoyance—not just from the delay, but also from the fact that you haven't done anything wrong—especially since this has happened three times in the past week. Or perhaps you send out more than 50 applications but receive no calls for interviews. When you learn that your friend, who is equally qualified, received numerous interview invitations, you realize that you were just unlucky and that the only thing separating you from them was your names. These situations may seem unrealistic to most people, but they are the live reality of many Americans.
Racism is still existent in today’s America and it is far from going extinct. The society is far from solving the racism problem. An individual’s skin color can determine a broad range of variables in life, whether it is the susceptibility to poverty or the treatment by police. In particular, the blacks in America face a significant number of economic and social barriers owing to their color. However, racism in America is not binary. It is prevalent way beyond a white-black disparity, affecting Arabs, Hispanics, and a miscellany of other minorities (Bonilla-Silva, 2017)
There are various aspects of the American society proving that racism is still happening in the society. One of the greatest evidences of racism in the society is in the bias exhibited in mass incarceration. While a third of the population in America is comprised of the people of color, approximately two-thirds of those in prison are people of color. According to Jarvis (2016), one in every three black men in America will go to prison at one or several points in their lives. The law enforcement and judiciary system in America is largely marred by substantially high levels of racial disparities. The systems largely target and stigmatizes young black men and arrest them at a young age, burdens taxpayers, unfairly punishes communities of color, and exacts a tremendous social cost.
The people of color constantly earn less compared to their white counterparts. According to Koppelman (2016), data between 2008 and 2015 reveal that the blacks consistently earned less than the whites, with the Asian population earning the most on average. By 2015, the GDP per capita for blacks was $11,908, compared to $13,260 for whites, while the Asians had $13,884. This information only reveals a fact that has been in existence and dates back decades. It indicates the racism that the American society exhibits, subjecting the black community to a lifestyle filled with social and economic hurdles.
In many states in America, there are several active hate groups targeted to people of color. For instance, hate groups such Aryan Nation or Ku Klux Klan, are extremist groups grounded on the basis of race. Most of these groups are driven by white supremacy. These groups did not end despite the ending of the racial segregation since the civil rights era. Evidence shows that hate groups exist in over 50 states in the United States, and they are alive and fully functional (Koppelman, 2016).
People of color in the United States are more likely to be shot and killed than the white people. According to, unarmed people of color are seven times more likely than their white counter parts to die by police gunfire. In most cases, reports of police brutality indicate that the police often target the black Americans. Although black women are routinely raped beaten and killed by the police, their experiences are rarely regarded as police brutality. However, they are also cases of racism in America (Koppelman, 2016).
These activities indicate that racism is still happening in America and subjects the American people of color to inhumane conditions. They often face economic and social barriers in their daily lives owing to their skin color. For this reason, sensitization is needed to highlight the plight of the people of color in America and protect them from the white supremacy. Something needs to be done.
References
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2017). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America. Rowman & Littlefield.
Jarvis, B. (2016). 'The real battle against racism in the US is not on the red carpet at the Oscars'.
Koppelman, K. L. (2016). Understanding human differences: Multicultural education for a diverse America. Pearson.
