My Impression on Racism

Remember how I told you that people around me are racist? My aunt and uncle, my best friend, and at one point, my parents. Yes, that’s right. Your brother was at one time, and sometimes still is, kind of racist. So why am I writing you this letter? Well I just read this interesting article about racism, specifically biker weeks that were basically segregated. And we know a lot about bikers, since Dad used to be one. So in South Carolina, one biker week called Harley week is exclusively white while the other called Black Bike is solely black. As the author and other sociologists alike say, the differences in the treatment of these two biker groups were astounding and not hard to notice.

One of the key points that the author made was the different actions of the city, the police and the tourists and how they reacted to the two different weeks. During the first week, the white biker week, the bikers were free to roam through the whole street and receive appreciation from everyone in sight. During the black bike week however, only one lane of the street was open, all the store fronts were closed and there was an extra police presence. Soon after, the NAACP sued the city and the restaurants for violating civil rights laws. The sociologists realized that the city and the restaurants would say the exact same thing as their argument: the situation was due to various factors that didn’t include race. The reasons behind the unfair treatment were said to be age differences and criminal activity. Another reason could have been because black biker week was set during Memorial Day. Eventually, all reasons were debunked using facts and statistics, and there was really no other reason than racism that the two were treated different...

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...e to talk to you about racism, because racism is a very touchy subject especially when you insist that white people are being colorblind. My final thoughts would have to be what should we do next? What’s to come after this? Will people read this article and finally see the error in their ways? In the case that doesn’t happen, which it seems that it won’t until pigs fly, we should suggest solutions to fight the problem. There’s already been multiple protests, I even saw one at the University of Akron about the recent racist threats at the University of Missouri. Maybe we can start programs around the country for people that are being discriminated against, like for jobs, where they can find careers in a safe place. There’s a bunch of things white allies can do in order to make this world better for people of color, but first we have to get educated, and less ignorant.