The reason people of color are silent when it comes to racism is due to the fact that they are being kept in a state of fear by white people. This is a situation that most people of color and lower class people have to go through on normal bases. Since my family immigrated to this country from Mexico we have been in situations that have kept us silent due to fear of deportation. I have seen many immigrant families that have been taken advantage of because of their fear of being sent back to their home country, including my own family. My grandfather and uncles have been exploited in their work, for years. They used to work in the Sonoma County vineyards, and would have to work around three in the morning till round dusk. They would only get paid for the amount of grapes they picked, not the amount of work they did. At the time they were undocumented, and were scared of what would happen if they complained or quit their job. Because many immigrants do not speak English or feel that they do not speak English fluently, they do not speak out when they see or experience racism or discrimination around them. They remain silent, because they feel if they do speak out something might happen to their safety. We feel that white people or their bosses will call the police to deport us, for speaking out, and then immigration will come after us. The fear of being separated from our families is the biggest fear immigrants have. This fear comes from immigrants bad experiences, that instills fear in the undocumented Latin American community. After our community has fear, this fear then manifest itself into silence.
The people in power, white corporation leaders, want to oppress marginalized communities in order to exploit them to develop fear t...
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...tical thinker before I knew what it meant.
We need to understand why people have this silence, if we want to know how to solve the problem. The silence that people have is caused by from fear of the violence that under class people has gone through. The silence comes from how people are raised, this includes how their parents raise them, and to the kind of friends they have, to the school and teacher they have. People of lower class are always told to be silent and not to speak out because it is wrong, but who is truly wrong for? Higher up elites do not want people to ask questions because they will start to question their reality. It is the job of people who have knowledge of what is truly going on, to teach new student and older blinded people to the reality of the world. By them knowing about their oppression they will want break their silence and create change.
The Dangers of Fear Irish Playwright, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.” Inhumanity is mankind’s worst attribute. Every so often, ordinary humans are driven to the point where they have no choice but to think of themselves. One of the most famous examples used today is the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night demonstrates how fear is a debilitating force that causes people to lose sight of who they once were.
This awareness does come with a social outcry, an explosive retaliation, as the stress builds and boils until the injustice cannot be tolerated any longer. The Rodney King incident in Los Angeles is a prime example of social retaliation by the masses. The injustices that occurred paved the way for a group to become enraged and provided an outlet for the social mistreatment of African-American citizens to finally be expressed. The violence that followed would force political officials to respond to an issue that had existed, but was ignored because minority groups’ issues did not fit into a political agenda. However, this form of retaliation cannot thrive and lead to a consensus where terms are fair for both parties. Counterstances stems for violence, and forces violence to become a response. As Anzaldúa expressed, “The possibilities are numerous once we choose to act and not react.” (pg.
The sheriff of the town who witnesses such power struggles notes why white people continue to torture Black people, “There it is. America. You can see it right out our window. Church-attending, moral-living average men and women in all their glory. Normal people, they need something to hate. Something to blame for why things ain’t perfect in the world. Something to explain their fear” (Johnson 107). By blaming Black people, white people temporarily alleviate their own pain because at least another person’s world is worse than their own. This suggests that white people continue to torture Black people because they do not want to blame themselves for their own problems. Clearly, black people are made to seem inferior by the perceptions of different white
We then see this play out in discriminatory hiring practices, biased treatment in courtrooms, and the kinds of brutal treatment by police that took the lives of unarmed Black people like Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Akai Gurley. The result is that our communities are being put in double jeopardy, first by over zealous police and then by news stations serving as PR firms by
In the “Attunement” of Soren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, the author produces four beautiful variations on God’s temptation of Abraham in Genesis 22. In each, Abraham fails at his test in some way; even though in each he offers his son, he misses the full movements of philosophy and faith that the true Abraham completed. Each is closed by a brief image of a child being weaned, presumably a metaphor of the past story. Characteristically of Kierkegaard’s non-prescriptive style, we are told that these stories are the way in which a certain man has tried to understand Abraham; we are invited, but not forced, into contemplation of these various stories. There exist a wealth of connections between each Abraham narrative and the later text, but the motive or meaning behind this proliferation of Abrahams remains unclear, and the metaphors remain even less so. Examining the source of the stories and our own process of understanding them in terms of the forces of thought and faith, we can see the emergence of Kierkegaard’s self-styled role of poet in the form and purpose of these Attunement narratives.
"The Reality of Racial Profiling." CivilRights.org. The Leadership Conference, 22 08 2012. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
Many of the privileges that white people have are unnoticed as they have become such a daily part of life that not even people of color notice these privileges sometimes. Because of the portrayal of the typical person of color in media, institutional racism continues to exist, and it continues to bring out the hate and the fear of other races in people. In order to fight this injustice, people need to be made aware of these things, and as the studies have shown, awareness to white privilege
Institutionalized racism has been a major factor in how the United States operate huge corporations today. This type of racism is found in many places which include schools, court of laws, job places and governmental organizations. Institutionalized racism affects many factors in the lives of African Americans, including the way they may interact with white individuals. In the book “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Stories” ZZ Packer uses her short stories to emphasize the how institutionalized racism plays in the lives of the characters in her stories. Almost all her characters experience the effects of institutionalized racism, and therefore change how they view their lives to adapt. Because institutionalized racism is a factor that affects how
Concluding remarks: Ultimately, Margaret Wente’s article “The Original Sin of White Privilege” is a missed opportunity. Had she decided to present this information with more statistical evidence and less anecdotal evidence her argument would have been stronger. This is a highly controversial topic that calls for the use of several examples in order to provide the reading with a clear and compelling
Racism grows when immigrants come to the United States, because they are the target of discrimination for racist groups. Instead of cultures being able to come together, white supremacy try to tear them apart. It is so sad to see how Latinos are being discrimanted against, even to the point of rape. We have all have human right, legal or illegal, no one should take advantage of us. What surprised me the most is that in these southern states, no one seems to be standing up for these people being abused. These racist groups in my opinion should not exist, but they have and will continue to be a negative part of our nation.
Silence teaches and creates things, it also leaves things bottled up inside and emotions running astray. In the book, The Chosen the characters didn't always know what was happening with others because they were silent many times. But some could know what each other were talking about like, Danny and Reuven. They could understand each other even when silent because of the close relationship they had Danny's silence is based on "Being raised in silence", "The technique and how it impacted Danny", and "How the method of raising a child can work out"
The problem is that those with privilege do not see the problem. Hear no evil, see no evil. Ignorance is bliss. These are just a few phrases that come to mind when I think about the ignorance of the white race. This is not to say that we are all ignorant but clearly if you are a white american you do not know what it is to
Is Systematic Oppression still relevant? An examination into the roots of the Black Lives Matter Campaign and its Validity in Modern Times? Native Son: Essay Rough Copy
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
Because we are only human, our history is a crazy bumbling mess “filled with ironies and unintended consequences, paths not taken and opportunities missed” (Cottrol, 2013). Historically white people have oppressed people of color from the moment we first ran into them during European exploration. It was not until a few hundred years later that African Americans were able to have a common enemy in The Jim Crow Legislation of the American South. This is the first time we see large masses of people of color coming together to fight for their rights (Cottrol, 2013). A direct effect of this fight was Affirmative Action, legislation that allowed some equality in education and the work place. This scared white people because it made the job market more competitive. This in turn caused white Americans to claim that “their” jobs were being “stolen” simply because they were white (Fine, Weis, Powell Pruitt, Burns, 2012). There is a long history of anger and mistrust between white Americans and Americans of color, some justified and some