Segregation Now in the USA

Forty-seven years ago the Civil Rights Act was passed to end racial discrimination in America. And later on the 24th Amendment to poll taxes, then the Voting Rights Act to allow every man to vote and not be discriminated against. Black Power, the Nation of Islam, and the Southern Christian Leadership conference were just some of the groups that tried to end segregation and promote the African American race. Although these groups did help end it, it still exists in today’s world and many studies have been done to prove it in the past couple of years.

Many people across the world still judge based on color, a recent study showed that when a European American is conversing with an African American they will typically cross their arms or stand farther back than they normally would. They don’t intentionally do this, they are not trying to offend the other person, they don’t even realize that they are doing it in fact. Implicit or automatic response are mental associations that are so well established in our mind, that they function without awareness, control, or intention. The reason this happens with certain races other than white is that we are exposed to negative references of African Americans, it also has to deal with America’s history of racial discrimination.They have also seen racial segregation on college campuses over the past few years, they have seen students of different racial backgrounds attending the same classes, but more so socializing with the same race and not having diversity within their friend groups. This is called self-segregation, while some people view it as an okay thing, since the students are just simply looking for others who understand their culture and have common beliefs. Others don’t agree with it ...

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...tter? We can change our implicit attitudes towards the African American group by exposing ourselves to influential African Americans, but people won’t look at pictures everyday of them. When Barack Obama was running for president and then became president of the United States the results didn’t change, even though we were being exposed to an admired African American. George Wallace said while being inagurated as governor “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” This does still hold to be true but not in the sense that he meant it. We still judge and make assumptions based on color and people self-segregate in some situations. We don’t ever know if it will ever really be equal, since we can’t change what happened over fifty years ago; but I think over time it will become less and less of an issue- it will still be present but not as distinct.