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the racism in american history
the racism in american history
strengths and weaknesses of racial segregation
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A hierarchy began to develop in America as soon as the first American colony was established. This hierarchy, developed by whites to justify their actions, divided humans into different groups depending on factors of skin color, and different cultural norms, and has always positioned Whites on top and Blacks on bottom. All other racial groups began to fall into intermediate positions as their populations became more prominent. In the US the most prominent racial divide is not between Blacks and Nonblacks but, Whites and Nonwhites. This is seen in the introduction of nonwhite groups to the American society; and the continued oppression of nonwhites in a white political and social atmosphere. The vast separation between whites and nonwhites can …show more content…
Starting with methods, such as, pool taxes and literacy tests, cunningly denying individuals their right to vote or convey their political voice continues in America today. Saito in the article “The Political Significance of Race” describes the effects that redistricting and gerrymandering can have on a community, by using the decennial census as a “unique opportunity to examine the relation between race and politics because the 1965 Voting Rights Act requires the recognition and protection of the political rights of ethnic and racial minorities” (120). Redistricting is the redrawing of districts, block by block supposedly to ensure each district has about the same number of people, and to guarantee that each voter has an equal political say. Redistricting can determine which political party is in power in each district by deliberately ensuring the district is drawn to include the people who support a specific party. This is called gerrymandering, the manipulation of district lines to protect or change political power. This can be used as a strategy to dilute the political voice of minority groups by conveniently drawing the lines to minimize their
In reading chapter 1, of the “Ethnic Myth”, by Stephen Steinberg, explains how the U.S. has a dominant society. In the U.S. class structures, unequal distributions of wealth, and political power vary between certain racial and ethnic groups. A main idea in this reading is ethnic pluralism which is defined as a particularly diverse racial or ethnic group that maintains their traditional culture within a broader more common civilization. Throughout history, race and ethnicity have caused conflict and the struggle of dominance over land. In reading chapter 2, of Drawing the Color Line, by Howard Zinn, explains how early in history inferior statuses of races which lead to mistreatment lead to racism. The very start of slavery began when african american slaves were brought to the north american colony called Jamestown.
"Events in the nineteenth century made it abundantly and irrefutably clear that race as a concept sui generis superseded social class as the dominant mechanism of social division and stratification in North America." (Smedley 219) For many decades people have been using race as a way to classify humans into different social categories. Lower, Middle, and Upper classes were created to divide humans into appropriate categories using their individual lifestyles, financial income, residence, and occupation. People decided to ignore this classifying system and classify one another, simply by the color of their skin. People's skin color says nothing as to what a person does, their beliefs, attitudes, or any of the ideas for creating a fair social classification system. Racial barriers were created that divided people into different groups at work and at home. Race differences in identity and social position were, and are, more important than class differences in American society.
Every ten years, district boundaries are redrawn. Although the Constitution guarantees that your vote is secret, the fact of whether or not you voted in the election, as well as your political party, sex and age are made public. Both political parties have access to this information and use it to their advantage while redrawing election districts. The United States Constitution specifies that representative’s seats should be proportional to the decennial census but says nothing about how states should draw district boundaries for representatives. The party in control of redistricting can weaken the opposition by “packing” as many opposition voters as possible into a minimum number of conceded districts, and/or “cracking” opposition voters among numerous safe districts where they are in the minority. This process is inherently undemocratic because it often creates representative results that are substantially different from the overall population. Therefore, the will of the people is subverted for political gain because there is not equal representation of citizens in government. Furthermore, the process of gerrymandering determines many political races before they actually take place, which clearly takes away power from the individual. There are many realistic steps that could streamline this
Race is a difficult subject to talk about. Race is a subject that does matter. Our society has been and remains tainted by race divisions. This subject is address in the books White like me Reflection on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise and Race Matters by Cornel West. Both books have a different emphasis in this topic.
This is when a districts lines have clearly been drawn by state legislators for partisan and incumbent benefit (Conover, 10/13). Therefore, gerrymandering lessens how representative Congress is of the American people because its purpose is increase the number of votes for whom the one drawing the district lines, usually the state legislator, wants to win, while making the votes of the opponents less significant. Typically, those in charge of redistricting focus on devaluing the votes of minorities in order to maintain majority. There are three types of gerrymandering; cracking, packing, and tacking. Packing is when there is a concentration of a certain type of voters into one district to reduce their influence (Conover, 10/13). For instance, an example of this would be if all the mass amount of Democrats within a district were packed into a single district. Cracking is when specific types of voters are spread out among several districts so they do not get enough votes in a district to win (Conover, 10/13). An example being breaking up groups of Hispanics over several districts so that their votes do not hold as much value as they would have had there been a significant number of Hispanics over the span of a few districts. Finally, tacking is when unusual shaped districts are created to focus majority party power, usually by tacking one district to another faraway district (Conover, 10/13). An example of this may
In order to discuss the social construction of race, one must first decide what the word “race” actually means. After some basic researching, one could find several generic, varying definitions, making the topic a bit fuzzy or unclear. Interestingly enough, no coherent, fixed definition of race actually exists. So how has it become a term so generally and widely used? It seems that race has become a categorical term for groups of people, but one must analyze what characteristics define each category or group of people in order to fully understand what “race” is and how society has come to “construct” these varying types of race.
Social Stratification in the African American community has changed over the years. Social stratification is defined as a rigid subdivision of a society into a hierarchy of layers, differentiated on the basis of power, prestige, and wealth according to Webster’s dictionary. David Newman in Sociology Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life describes stratification as a ranking system for groups of people that perpetuates unequal rewards and life chances in society. From slavery to the present, the African American community has been seen to have lower status compared to white people. Today, the stratification or hierarchy difference between whites and black are not really noticeable, but it is still present. However, during slavery, the difference in social stratification was noticeable. Whites dominated over the blacks and mulattoes (offspring of a white and black parent). The mulattoes were seen to have a higher stratification than an offspring of black ancestry. Because the mulattoes were related to the whites, they were able to obtain higher education and better occupations than blacks. For example, most slaves of a lighter skin tone worked in the houses and darker slaves worked in the fields. As the people of light skin tone had children, they were able to have advantages too. The advantages have led into the society of today. In this paper I will discuss how stratification has been affected in the African American community over time by skin tone to make mulattoes more privileged than dark skin blacks.
Race, Ethnicity and one's worldview shape history, politics, schools, neighborhoods, the media, science and many aspects of our life. They also shape an individual's life. These terms are significant aspects of people's lives. Race is a term that is used to categorize humans by their visible differences such as White, Asian or Black. Our textbook suggests, race refers to the way a group of people defines itself or how others may define them as being different from other groups because of assumed innate physical characteristics (Baruth & Manning, 2016). The term race has impacted our society immensely. The concept of race is used to distinguish people due to their skin, eye color, eyes, ears, lips, nose, and head. However, race should not be
Gender, it is a concept that describes how society determines the sex and it is an attach to how man and woman play roles in society. Gender is not depending on biological gene but how a person understands their identities. It is connecting to their attitude and an individual feel. “Since sex neither predict nor guarantees gender role there is a flexible built-in to the sex-gender system.” (Gender,bell hook, 117) some research shows that gender is biological and sexed body begin immediately as the child is born. In some cases, biological sex does not follow with their gender identity. Transgender people will go under transition themselves into opposite sex and also hormones changes. I believe that 50% genes and 50% environments that the person wants to be the opposite sex. It is depending on how they social interaction or recognition. I also believe that gender and sexually are not someone identities but it is social identities.
It is important to realize that even though it is the 21st century, United States of America is not a post-racial society. A post-racial society is considered to be “a society free from racial prejudice, discrimination, and oppression” (Adams et al., 57). The reason I state that it is not post-racial is because racism, discrimination, prejudices, and oppression occurs every day. Although racism and discrimination does not have as much public support as it once did, it is still evident. Since there is not as much public tolerance for either issues, people may hide their racist or discriminatory beliefs. Also, discrimination and racism is not as candid as it once was on mass media, but there are still subtle hints of both.
In my opinion, this event was an act of an ignorant Trump supporter, who was trying to intimidate African American voters. This was a discriminatory act upon racial minority groups because they specifically targeted one of the oldest African American churches in Greenville, Mississippi. Also, this act creates negative stereotype's for instance, black people don’t have a voice, freedom or independence. Majority of white supremacist or racist believe that African Americans are inferior than any other racial group. Specifically, this article involves only two races African Americans and white people. The relations of these two groups were brought upon by the empowering election and race. Donald Trump had a great impact on white supremacist
What is the true definition of race? Society divides people into groups based on their skin color whether it’s black, yellow, or white. If you think about it, in today’s society, Caucasian people are Black people’s neighbors, doctors and friends. With a growing unity between all races, why does racism continue to stay in society? We all know this answer, and this is because society is still somewhat stuck in the past. We are stuck with this prejudicial idea based on the same reason, why Black people had to sit in the back of the bus. In society, the Caucasian population is still considered to be the majority of the world. In fact, humans are not different, instead they are negative and they discriminate and isolate against different people of color. From what I learned in my anthropology class, the biological answer of race is easy based on how one may characterize themselves as being a person of color. According to Jared
In today’s society race, culture, ethnicity, and morals are the things people live up to. My race, culture, or ethnicity don’t define my personal values. What defines me is my morals and values in society. The things valued in my life are family, education, and, church. My main moral is to respect my body and values through life.
I think there are several issues that this country needs to face when it comes to racism and the Civil Rights Movement. One of the primary issues is how the Democratic Party has used and abused the majority of people who are considered minorities for many years, and the mass media has done nothing but add fuel to the fire. Secondly, I think that itself, the mass media, is a huge problem for the Civil Rights Movement. As soon as there is any sort of problem that occurs that can be correlated with the Civil Rights Movement or equality, the mass media takes that event and blows it way out of proportion, and often using major “hot-words” that blur the perception of reality. That’s extremely dangerous because now whenever it comes to talking about issues of race or equality there is just a field of landmines that you have to tip-toe around just to be able
A racial hierarchy is a system of stratification to force people to believe one race is better than the other ones. In order to differentiate the different social groups, people may classify them according to skin tone, eye colors and etc. These biological differences do not include cultural differences but they are used to legitimize the role expectations. There physical forms are given social meanings. Using a fact from the Americans in the 1900s, the white are expected to be richer, well educated and have a higher employment rate than the blacks in that time of period. This may not be the real statistic in the