Racism In Society Today

In today’s society, racism plays a fundamental role in multiple aspects throughout many people’s lives. These aspects can include getting a job, getting into college, fairness in the legal system, and many more. Racism is the belief that one certain race is superior to another race such as European American people thinking they are superior to Asian Americans, although this idea is not supported by any empirical evidence. Social conflict theorists may study the racial groups in America. These theorists embrace the idea that the upper class controls the community while the lower class strives for the limited resources (Giddens et al 2014). This would clearly cause major problems in vital situations in an individual’s life through racial groups

Shockingly, as Selfa (2002) explains, racism began as early as the 1400s by Europeans. And it is still in effect today in 2014. It all started with the slave traders who forcibly shipped roughly twelve million Africans to America (Selfa 2002). The twelve million slaves were then bought and sold, thus beginning the heavy burden of slavery in America. With slavery came a contagious thought of racism. European Americans thought they were superior in American to all other races. However, at this time most racism that we are aware of was between whites and blacks. This superiority and development of racism led to racial organizations such as the KKK, Black Panthers, and even laws against Black Americans. Groups such as the Ku Klux Klan were great supporters of white supremacy that still exist today. According to History.com, the KKK had roughly ten thousand active members in the 1990s (History.com Staff 2009). This is an example of how racism is still in America today, there are racial groups that still gather and believe in white supremacy even though they may not be as vocal as they used to be in the 20th century. Selfa (2002) refers to C.L.R. James where he explains that slavery was deemed ‘OK’ because whites believed they were the dominant race and thus they needed to separate the whites from the blacks. With this division came segregation and this still affects minorities today. For example, Blacks were not allowed to

America is known as the melting pot, a place where people of all races and backgrounds mix and come together to strive as one (Giddens et al 2014). Therefore all races are minorities here except the Native Americans and thus there should not be any racism because we are all inferior people. Besides, race is a socially constructed idea (Giddens et al 2014). We should be able to abolish racism in America but that is up to the people to decide. Since they are the ones who gave rise to the term, it is their decision to end it. However, it would take nearly all citizens to be on board which is