Racism is experienced when one race feels superior than another resulting in discrimination and prejudice. Over the years, racism has existed, and different people have felt the effects on different levels depending on whether one is the perpetrator or the victim. Racism in most cases is perpetrated by the dominant race upon the less dominant one (Webb 246). Racism is a rampant problem in the United States. When compared to the rest of the world, the United States of America has the highest levels of racism.
Racism is a form of prejudice and discrimination that is based on one’s race or skin color. Its effects are diverse ranging from economic marginalization, mass incarceration, and violence among others. The perpetrators of the vice believe that their race is superior to the victim’s race. In America, the people who have been most affected by racism are the blacks. They are discriminated in various places ranging from learning institutions, workplaces, and other service delivery institutions (Clark 23). Besides, racism can be expressed in social actions or political regimes that sustain prejudice or discriminatory practice. Over the decades, racism in the United States against the African Americans has been institutionalized, and the blacks have suffered at the hands of the political and social organizations. According to Pegues, institutional racism occurs when institutions like governments, companies, churches, and schools encourage racism by promoting racist thinking and vices. The effects of institutional racism manifest themselves through such things as income and wealth distribution, employment opportunities, government positions held and housing among others.
Consequently, although the current relationships between Americans and African Americas have significantly improved, race superiority is still happening. Many people in America face discrimination in different circumstances because of their race. Its prevalence has been intensifying majorly by ignorance of the concerned parties and infringement of fundamental human rights by the perpetrators. A study conducted by diversity digest indicated that whites rate African Americans to be less intelligent. Similarly, about 30 percent of African Americans rated themselves to be less intelligent than their white counterparts. Such notions promote racism in various places such as in job markets. Similarly, in the year 2012, a seventeen year old teenager Trayvon Martin was shot by a police who claimed that the boy looked suspicious (Mcivor 111). Martin’s case is a representation of other cases that perhaps have not been documented. It is important for the public to be aware that racism exists in the contemporary America. Its prevalence has denied jobs to qualified candidates, made students to be segregated in schools and brought misery, suffering, and even death to innocent citizens. It is an issue that requires being condemned strongly through human and social movements so as to combat its spread; hence, the emergence of an activist group with slogan "Black Lives Matter,” which advocates for the fair treatment of black people. On its website, it claims that its grievances are not only targeted at extra-judicial killings of black people but also on a whole range of issues (Clark 17). However, as demonstrated by Card, the formation of the movement did not deter the extra-judicial killings of the blacks. But rather, the shooting of black teenagers by police has continued since its formation. These killings are usually in different states ranging from New York, Wisconsin, and Florida among others. In Florida, Corey Jones, an African-American government worker was shot and killed by a plainclothes policeman. They found Jones with a gun for which he had a license (Ransby 23). The police officer was tried and found guilty. Though some African-American teens may have ill intentions when confronting a police officer, not all teens are the same. The police have profiled the black teens as criminals, and this has led to the death of several innocent people because of racial prejudice. Black teens are way more likely to be killed by police than their white counterparts even though they may both have committed the same offense (Posel 88).
Evidently, the African -Americans comprise the largest group of people affected by racism in the United States. This is because they are perceived as less knowledgeable and important species of people (Railton 5). Blacks have experienced discrimination in schools while others have even been killed in the streets. “Michael Brown an unarmed black man was shot by a white police officer called Wilson in Ferguson.” The people present during the incident reported that an argument arose between Michael and Wilson just before he was hot. Wilson claimed that Brown assaulted him that why he decided to shoot him as a way of defense. However, Dorian Johnson a colleague to Brown reported that Brown first ran away and later surrendered before Wilson shot him several times (Railton 5). Brown's case is an illustration of the atrocities that African Americans undergo because of their color. Evidently, there was no reason for Wilson to shoot an unarmed civilian, Brown.
The reason why blacks are more likely to die from police shootings than whites is that the law enforcement institutions have been made to believe that blacks are more likely to commit a robbery or be armed (Littlewood 277). All the cases where police have been accused of wrongly killing an African-American, the perpetrators have been white police officers. In some instances, it has been proved that the police had no business whatsoever disrupting the victim’s actions. One such case is Corey Jones who was shot beside his mechanically disabled vehicle (Pegues 145).
During this modern era of civilization, discriminatory laws have been abolished and people have focused on accommodative laws advocating for equal rights and fair treatment. In this perspective, racism is expected to decline steadily. This has provided an opportunity for children hailing from racially mixed parents to acknowledge their different racial individualities. However, some occurrences reveal that racism is still practiced. In 2006, two girls went to Burleson School in Texas carrying purses that showed big images of Confederate flags. Upon reaching school they were instructed to leave the purses in the office in order to be allowed to attend classes. The school administrators claimed that the girls violated dress code law that barred attire with inappropriate symbols (Mcivor 111). After the case proceeded to court, it was determined that the girls were prohibited by law to wear clothes with symbols that could interrupt school activities. This case is a good illustration of racist practices in current America.
Moreover, racism is mostly practiced in United States schools particularly in private learning institutions. Racism started in schools during 1896 when different schools were set up for people of different color (Ransby 31). During that time, African Americans worked as slaves in whites farms, their children were not allowed to access same schools with white children. In 1954, a court ruling directed that schools should offer equal education. However, the blacks could not attend the white schools. About 10 years after that ruling George Wallace the then Alabama governor obstructed two African American students from accessing the university auditorium. The governor denied those two students entry until some officials were issued an order by President John Kennedy. Currently, students from diverse races and ethnic groups are allowed to access schools of their choice although there remains a disparity in the quality of education they are offered. Racism in schools has left an indelible mark of inequality in the national education system.
In addition, the number of whites in the US jails is very low. However, men of other races, especially the African and the Asians make up the largest number of individuals in those jails despite the fact that the whites commit crimes at the same rate as other races (Littlewood 277). White police officers found in the US believe that their race is superior and if one belongs to any other race their culture is inferior and they are definitely not morally upright, hence the reason why incarceration of people of other races in the country is high as compared to the incarceration of the whites.
In contrast, several people have come out to deny the existence of racism in the United States. For instance, in 2014, Dove ran an advertisement whose content portrayed black people as being inferior as compared to the white people. The commercial was a 3-second Facebook ad that advertised Dove soap. The ad depicted a black woman wearing a brown nude T-shirt, which she pulls off to reveal a white woman in a lighter T-shirt. The ad featured three women each taking off her shirt to reveal another woman (Card 78). The image that is portrayed by the ad is that to be black is to be dirty and that Dove soap cleanses the dirty black to give a clean white. It maintains the conventional standards of western beauty that sets whites as the measure of beauty. After the commercial met hostile reception on Facebook and other media, the model who shot the ad claimed that she did not feel victimized. She denied that the ad was not racism as its intention was only to create inclusivity and not to promote racism. Similarly, when people like Sessions Cook, Dove’s PR, claim that affirmative action should not be taken against the them, he is undermining efforts to make up for 300 years of institutionalized racism. Just as the Dove ad, these forms of racism continue to affirm the superiority of whites while associating blacks and other minority races with inferiority, crime, drugs, and violence. While these people claim, they are not racists, they embracing structured and institutionalized racism. The problem with this people is that they view racism from their point of view instead of as a member of a group or race.
In conclusion, it is evident from the discussion above that, when compared to the rest of the world, the United States of America has the highest levels of racism. Racism has a significant impact on the society. Therefore, actions, attitudes, and utterances that refer to an entire racial group should be made with a lot of caution. This is because any form of prejudice serves to reaffirm believes that people already have. White people need to recognize that the society is structured to their favor. Western culture has inherent inequalities that make life more favorable for white people than people of color. Another thing that will make covert racism more apparent to people is when they stop to see themselves as individuals but as part of a race. When someone refers to black people as thugs or marijuana users, they have to be aware that they are saying that not as an individual but as a white person. Once people have acknowledged white privilege and seen themselves as part of that race, they should put effort to be "anti-racist." That means they should consciously acknowledge that some of their perceptions about black people are wrong. Also, the government and other institutions should make an effort to fix the structural inequalities that exist.
Works Cited
Card, David, and Jesse Rothstein. “Racial Segregation and the Black-White Test Score Gap.” Journal of Public Economics, vol. 91, no. 11-12, 2007, pp. 2158-2184.
Clark, Ernest. Today's Racism and Black Frustration, 1991.
Littlewood, R. “Institutional Racism.” Psychiatric Bulletin, vol. 27, no. 7, 2003, pp. 277–277.
Mcivor, David W. “Black Lives Matter and the Democratic Work of Mourning.” Cornell University Press, 2017.
Pegues, Jeff. Black and Blue: Inside the Divide between the Police and Black America. Prometheus Books, 2017.
Posel, Deborah. “Apartheid and Influx Control Strategy in the 1950s.” The Making of Apartheid 1948–1961, Dec. 1991, pp. 61–90., doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198273349.003.0003.
Railton, Ben. “Introduction: Teaching Americans the Chinese Exclusion Act.” The Chinese Exclusion Act, 2013, pp. 1–7., doi:10.1057/9781137339096_1.
Ransby, Barbara. “The Class Politics of Black Lives Matter.” Dissent, vol. 62, no. 4, 2015, pp. 31–34., doi:10.1353/dss.2015.0071.
Webb, C. “Battling Racism.” History Workshop Journal, vol. 70, no. 1, Jan. 2010, pp. 246–250., doi:10.1093/hwj/dbq026.
