Undermining Democracy: Socioeconomic and Racial Inequalities in America

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The ideology behind American democracy can be defined by equal opportunity. More specifically it is ability for all citizens to have equal economic opportunity, such as education and also equal political opportunity, such as being able to vote and bail out of prison. The novels Our Kids and Just Mercy, by authors Robert Putnam and Brian Stevenson respectively, are both intellectual literacies following stories of inequalities in America. Focusing on two distinct types of inequality-socioeconomic and race- each book gives explicit insight to how it is affecting American democracy. Socioeconomic and racial inequalities are undermining the foundation of democracy. Citizens in poverty and racial minority groups are finding themselves to have unequal opportunities in education, incarceration, political efficacy. …show more content…

Tocqueville believed this concept threatened equality, sequentially threatening democracy as a whole. Currently Americans are beginning to indulge in individualism. As people begin to refrain from helping others, they begin to hurt the economy. Economically, as the wealthy begin to live with a “so what” attitude, claiming it is not their responsibility to help the poor, democracy is being undermined. Being uninvolved with other classes causes the economic gap to continuously grow leaving the poor immobile. The bigger the gap becomes, the harsher these socioeconomic inequalities become, which tocqueville argues will lead to an aristocracy. The same applies for minorities. If whites further oppress other races the farther we stray from equality. Americans need to recognize that without helping each other, democracy is slowly being destroyed. Individualism, along with inequalities in class and race are disastrously undermining

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