Examples Of Racism

Two Men and One Idea: Racism Why does racism exist? First off, what is racism? Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race. Racism is a sticky situation where Americans refuse to talk about. People don’t like to converse about the topic of racism because it’s very controversial, especially among blacks and whites. There are two, well-known African American men who portrayed the harm of racism through their literature. W.E.B. Dubois explained his idea of racism, double consciousness, and the veil through his writing called The Souls of Black Folk. Richard Wright talked racism through his own personal experience. Wright wrote an autobiography called “The Ethics of Living Jim

One example is explained when Wright said “Whut yuh tryin’ t’ do, nigger, git smart?” (Wright 4) This is verbal abuse because the word “nigger” is what whites would call blacks in a bad way. No one should call anyone something they don’t want to be called. “Nigger” is a word that was used towards blacks when white people would feel disrespected by black people. This was a word used to make black people feel like they are lower than white people, like slaves; even though some were. Even though “nigger” is a word that is still used today, it is not as offensive as it was back then. When black people use this word among themselves, it’s not really a problem, but if a white person calls a black person ‘nigger’ it brings some hostility. Another example explained in Wright’s “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow” is when he said “You black son-of-a-bitch! You call me Pease, then!” (Wright 6). This is verbal abuse because using profanity towards a person is verbal abuse, especially toward a child. Calling someone that word could make a person feel so low in a way. This could make a person feel low in a way where it’s double-consciousness (Dubois). Double-consciousness is when you feel some type of way about yourself and it could be different in the eyes of others. Meaning you might think you’re smart, while others think you’re dumb. When you call someone a name, like “son-of-a-bitch” could make you change

Dubois portrayed his ideas in his writing and Wright displayed Dubois’ ideas through his personal experience. Racism is an important argument to talk about among all races because people think small about it and racism is should be an open topic for people to talk about it instead of avoiding the issue. Racism has changed over the years because years and years ago, people were being lynched due to their skin color. Today racism isn’t that intense, but when a white person kills a black person or vice versa; people want to pull the racial card. In the future, racism will be a more open topic to talk about it and will soon be