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Essay On The Effects Of Racism On African Americans

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The Effects of Racism against African Americans Rosa Parks once stated, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” Although Parks stated this in 2005, her ideas correspond with American society today. For instance, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Eric Harris are only a few of the victims who have faced extreme racism. After being stopped for minor violations, and although all were unarmed, the police shot them in the back without proper reasoning. Accordingly, racism had morphed into other weapons of destruction causing havoc in society, police brutality against African Americans being the first and major example. Racism, a concept …show more content…

Overall, racism creates injustices in society such as unfair treatment under the justice system, it causes African Americans to receive lower quality and lesser opportunities in economics, as well as produces an emotional scar from the brutal treatment they encounter. The first effect of racism, the creation of injustices, most specifically the unequal standards the justice system sets for African Americans and whites, Alex Haley, Brittney Cooper, Katie Pavlich, and Sharon Watkins all examine in their various literary works. Nonetheless, all of these authors accomplish the task of displaying that racism plays a key role in creating injustices in society under the justice system. For …show more content…

For instance, in Nicholas Kristof's article “Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist?” Kristof mentions a study in which two scholars sent out nearly 5,000 résumés in response to help-wanted ads, randomly alternating between stereotypical white-sounding names and black-sounding names. Through this information, the scholars concluded that it took 50 percent more mailings for a black name to get a callback. This study illustrates that racism is not only in effect in all sectors of society, but that blacks as a whole will most likely never appear more eligible for a position than whites. Additionally, actions such as those demonstrated by the owners of the help-wanted signs force blacks to believe they will be of no value to society, hence, emotionally scarring them. African Americans will also feel emotionally violated as they are receiving punishment for being a different race compared to the most “prominent” people in the America. Accordingly, although Katie Pavlich in her article “America is not racist” denies America’s racist attitude, she provides an exceptional example to this so-called “non-existent” attitude. Pavlich sheds light on the Jim Crow laws that were the root of controversy in the nation during the mid-1900s. These laws placed enormous unreasonable restrictions on blacks based on their race. These restrictions, in the end, led to numerous African Americans

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The major thesis in this book, are broken down into two components. The first is how we define racism, and the impact that definition has on how we see and understand racism. Dr. Beverly Tatum chooses to use the definition given by “David Wellman that defines racism as a system of advantages based on race” (1470). This definition of racism helps to establish Dr. Tatum’s theories of racial injustice and the advantages either willingly or unwillingly that white privilege plays in our society today. The second major thesis in this book is the significant role that a racial identity has in our society.

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Whenever I read stories about racism that used to be even more in the past decades than today, I have always wonder how it came to an end. Who and what actions did they take to end it? This thoughts, feelings, and doubts led me to think that this article would be the best option for me to read.

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In 2010, author Michelle Alexander wrote the truly insightful book, The New Jim Crow. Throughout the book, Alexander displayed that by targeting African American men through the War on Drugs and racial biases within communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system is still functioning as a modern day system of racial control while hiding behind colorblindness. The New Jim Crow is an eye opening account of how African Americans are still being denied the very rights supposedly won from the Civil Rights Movement and makes one think about the modern day racial stigmas African Americans are facing. Although there has been many reforms to America, stigmatization is a still growing problem within the African American community and the lasting

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Over the last 500 years people of color, especially African American, have endured a pattern of state-sanctioned violence, civil and human rights abuse. To enforce capitalist exploitation and racial oppression the government and its police, courts, prisons, and military have beaten, framed, murdered, and executed private persons, while brutally repressing struggles for freedom, justice, and self-determination” (Fitzgerald, 2007). More often than not, police brutality has been a persistent problem faced by African Americans. “Historically, racist violence has been used to impose racial oppression and preserve white power and privilege. Racist violence has served five primary purposes: to force people of color into indentured, slave, peonage, or low wage situations; to steal land, minerals, and other resources; to maintain social control and to repress rebellions; to restrict or eliminate competition in employment, business, politics, and social life; and to unite “whites” across ethnic/national, class, and gender lines” (Fitzgerald, 2007).

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Institutional racism is inevitable in the United States. Institutional racism is constantly occurring, whether it be in the work force, schools, or the criminal justice system. The color of one’s skin is a determining factor for his success in a company, and whether or not he ends up in the court systems, and for how long. Although laws such as the Thirteenth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and Fifteenth Amendment have been put in place to avoid racism in America and give black people equal rights, institutional racism is still holding African Americans back.

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Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.

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The New Jim Crow give me a new perspective to look at the racism in the United States. Before reading it, I knew that black people are being mistreated in the United States, but I don’t know that government uses its power to control that black people’s life. I thought the election of President Obama means the end of racism in the United States, and apparently I am wrong. By reading this book, I realized the segregation changed its form to appear in today’s society and this new form of segregation turn most people into colorblindness. We don’t see the segregation is happened in United States because we don’t experience what black people have experienced.

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A study indicates that dark-skinned African Americans face a distinct disadvantage when applying for jobs. Matthew Harrison, a doctoral student at UGA undertook the first significant study of "colorism" in the workplace. He found that a light-skinned black male can have only a bachelor's degree and typical work experience and still be preferred over a dark-skinned black male with an M.B.A. and past managerial positions, simply because expectations of the light-skinned black male are much higher, and he doesn't appear as “menacing' as the darker-skinned male applicant.” This finding is possibly due to the common belief that fair-skinned blacks probably have more similarities with whites than do dark-skinned blacks, which in turn makes whites feel more comfortable around them. (Harrison

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The United States, born of oppression, has grown a cancer that imitates the very subjugation that the country was birthed from. Racism in America is a lingering narrative that has extended itself to the modern era. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s appeared to be the zenith of black suffrage; racism seeming to reach a resolution were. However, racism towards the black community is still seen in the 21st century, shown by the rise of police brutality seemingly targeted towards the black community and the Black Lives Matter movement. Racism in America still perseveres after the Civil Rights movement, shown by the unremitting discrimination of black men and women.

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Racism is an ever growing issue in the world, and something we can’t hide behind. According to dictionary.com the defintion of racism is: “the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” Race was created socially by how people perceive ideas and faces people are not used to yet. It is the “hatred” of one person to another individual, solely based on that person's belief that the person is inferior because of their language, birthplace and skin colour. Racism is an issue that has lasted throughout history, providing justification for a group’s dominance over another.

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“You don 't fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.” Naturally, societies don’t tend to understand change, and it scares them. Similar people in majority have their own principles, and when someone different interferes, they simply try to push it out. These people think that the minorities are their inferior. This belief is known as racism.

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