Persuasive Essay: Is Racism Over?

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Is racism over? If you asked this very question to different racial and ethnic groups, you 'll get very different answers. Some will say no, some will say yes. Differences will occur inter and intra-racially, but why the difference in answer to a seemingly easy question? The answer to that question is complex and multifaceted, and I will attempt to unravel that complexity. In this essay, I will talk about what is racism, the cause and effect of racism, and how racism can possibly be remedied in the future. First, I should define what race is. Race is a social construct, but its definition is a group of people who share similar and distinct physical characteristics. (AAPA) With that being said, there are no biological variances extensive enough …show more content…

Some of the first police forces did slave patrols. When lynching were happening, a lot of the time the local government and police forces were in on it. No reform has happened from those times to now. Yes, laws have been passed, but the laws that was passed was for glaring racism and discrimination not discreet racism that they could be sure would occur. For existent, racial profiling has been a hot topic for decades, especially when stop and frisk started in New York. In New York, the NYCLU did a study on New York City police force stop and frisk policies and found that 4.4 million people out of 4.9 million had been stopped from 2003-2013 who were innocent. During the same period, Latinos and African Americans between the ages of 14-24 were stopped the most at 41% though they only make up 4.7 % of the population. (nyclu.org) Almost 90 % of the 14-24 years old were innocent. (nyclu.org) 86.2% of all the people stopped were Latinos and African Americans. Weapons were found regardless of race 2% of the time, and white Americans were more likely to have weapons with them when they were searched. (nyclu.org) Statistics have proven that this form of policing results in no results, yet it still exists. The medical field is another area where institutional racism has festered. The medical field has …show more content…

Those sociological theories are functionalist theory, symbolic interaction theory, and conflict theory. Functionalist theory states that racism exists because of the lack of effort by minorities to assimilate into the dominant culture and if minorities assimilated, society would be of unanimity. (Crossman) Symbolic interaction theory is that everyone is who they are because of imitating those around them and by what they have learned through time, so when individuals come in contact with one another of different races they generate responses to one another based on previous information accumulated through life. (Crossman) During this encounter symbolic exchanges are incurring. (Crossman) Conflict theory states that class-based conflict is ingrained into the system and that racism is incorporated with class-based conflict and that to truly end racism class-based conflict must be eradicated first.

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