ipl-logo

Persuasive Paper: The Connection Between Law And American Culture

1198 Words5 Pages

Persuasive Paper: The Connection Between Law and American Culture. Profound and positive changes have occurred in race relations in the United States in the past half century. One now sees blacks working alongside whites, blacks being admitted as equals in theaters and restaurants. Legal restrictions on political and voting rights have been erased and the courts have outlawed segregation (Pascoe, 44). Racial segregation is defined as the practice of confining people to a certain area of residence, facilities and institutions like schools and churches. Racial segregation provides a way of maintaining the economic advantages and superior social status of the politically dominant group, and in the past and present times it has been employed primarily …show more content…

There is still stratified boundaries of whites/non whites in American society. Results of racism and racial segregation in the past has informed institutional cultures and practices that rest on assumptions of white superiority over people of color. Racism by consequence is then reflected in differential educational opportunities, economic differences and residential segregation. These subtle patterns of discrimination persist because they are supported by the inertia of custom (Meyer 68). Confronted with the long history of racially discriminatory structures in the housing market, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968. The Housing Fair Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex. Twenty- five years after the act was passed and several legislative amendments, however, housing segregation remains rampant. To this extent, Fair Housing Act has failed, in making neighborhoods less segregated and African Americans are still discriminated against in the housing …show more content…

School segregation levels are high and continue to rise. Recent data show that 72 percent of blacks, but only 11 percent of whites, attend schools where half or more of the students are not white (Massey, 134). Residential segregation also remains high. Data from the 2000 U.S. Census indicate that 62 percent of blacks would need to move to eradicate neighborhood segregation in metropolitan areas (Massey 134). Research has also found that most schools are locally funded. Therefore, the school district’s income can affect school spending and quality which in turn affects educational outcomes (Farley, 750). As neighborhood segregation continues, some school districts get richer and richer and others get poorer thereby increasing discrepancies in school funding (Massey 134). Low income children become concentrated in neighborhoods with few resources spent on schooling and the education quality is seldomly high due to lack of the school district ability to hire high quality teachers, provide important educational supplies thereby, the quality of declines. In the mean time, children that live in richer neighborhoods have more resources and their education increases and is higher

Show More
Related
150 Words | 1 Pages

The segregation in America's school districts are restrictions to the minority groups that seek further education. School districts in larger cities can not afford to have proper facilities for their students and fail to provide proper instructors. American author, Jonathan Kozol, exposes how inner city school districts are separating the minority children from the white children. In these segregated school districts, the schools that are primarily white have better facilities while the schools that include students with ethnic backgrounds have much higher dropout rates. Kozol’s goal is to share to the parents of grade school children how run down school districts are in the inner city.

Read More
1233 Words | 5 Pages

Additional Assignment 7 Segregation has come a long way since the days of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. Shelby Steele addresses the minorities and their disapproval of benefits in his essay “The New Sovereignty”. Modern day blacks, Hispanics, women, and other minorities receive special grants and privileges from the government. Those minorities still believe that their original rights that where fought for decades ago, and the sacrifices made them eligible for benefits. Steele’s essay is an eye opener to those minorities who do not earn what they receive and how working equally will promote the standards of the modern way of life.

Read More
457 Words | 2 Pages

In Essay 3 They Should Get over it written by Matthew W. Hughey a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut argues that racial inequality, segregation and discrimination is still very present in today’s society, he acknowledges that race places an emphasizes in how many individuals are being treated thru, housing, education and the mass media. (p26) . Throughout his essay Hyghey uses several methods of argument for example, statistics, graphs, examples, and expert opinion to support his claim. Hyghery argues that housing segregation is on the decline, but there’s still some cities in the United States remain highly segregated. ( p.31)

Read More
1219 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the history of the United States of America, a struggle to reach racial equality has been evident. The case Plessy v Ferguson made separation by race, in other word segregation, legal. But, in order for this separation to occur, an equal position or place must be present, creating the phrase “separate but equal.” Even though equal accommodations must have been present for segregation to be legal, inferiority was still strongly implied due to the separation. Due to this court case, it caused the struggle to reach racial equality much more difficult due to the legalization of segregation.

Read More
363 Words | 2 Pages

Even though de facto segregation of African Americans had similar intentions, it was more of a result of private choice and American value. Both forms of segregation contributed to racial hierarchy. Sociohistorical contextualization: Delgado, Perea, and Stefancic explain the two different practices of segregation and how they were used in specific court cases. For example,

Read More
445 Words | 2 Pages

In spite of the fight for equality and recognition, blacks face racial segregation from whites. After the enactment of the thirteenth amendment, slavery was abolished, strict segregation races were enacted. Signs were used for separating institutions and service centers. By the 1970s, segregation was declared unconstitutional, however, segregation is still faced in some institutions in America (Gawronski, 2012) .

Read More
1254 Words | 6 Pages

“Whiteness Is Everywhere in American Culture” The Integration of Whiteness with Goodness in America With his famous assertion in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson establishes the moral high-ground of America: “All men are created equal and are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (Jefferson). With the birth of an independent America, the Founding Fathers appear to construct a society with “unalienable rights” and equal opportunity; however, this idealized representation excludes enslaved racial minorities and later implodes in the 1860s with the Civil War and in the 1960s with the Civl Rights Movement. Yet the conversation regarding this racial hypocrisy continues in 2006 with “The Progressive Investment in Whiteness” by George Lipsitz: Slavery and “Jim Crow” segregation institutionalized possessive identification with whiteness visibility and openly, but an elaborate interaction of largely covert public and private decisions during and after the days of slavery and segregation also produced a powerful legacy with enduring effects on the racialization of experience, opportunities, and rewards in the United States.

Read More
10403 Words | 42 Pages

Urban decay and “ghettoization” are the clear result of deliberate and discriminatory housing policies of every level of governments. The federal government has historically created various policies to maintain racial segregation. Since its creation, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has perpetuated discrimination as the protector of all White neighborhoods. The FHA employed a practice called “redlining.”

Read More
1247 Words | 5 Pages

There is a tendency to view the racial segregation in American housing as the result of several local, uncoordinated decisions made in the past. Typically, Americans are told that once African American families began moving into a neighborhood, their prejudiced white neighbors would panic and start fleeing. This in turn led to plummeting property values, tax revenues, and a cycle of deteriorating neighborhoods that were in sharp contrast to those occupied by white residents. All of this taken together has some truth, but it is masking a far more important factor. For most of the twentieth century, racially discriminatory policies of federal, state, and local governments dictated where white and black citizens should and could live.

Read More
1445 Words | 6 Pages

The author explains in her book the effects of mass segregation and poverty that can cause students to perform poorly in schools. Poverty can cause economic stress, an unstable home environment, improper healthcare opportunities, and fewer opportunities for enrichment for these students. These students have other worries that cause distraction from their learning. Segregation can also cause students to feel unmotivated in school because their peers and others around them have other worries that distract them from education which, could cause the students to perform poorly in school. Unlike their privileged counterparts who have less economic stress because their parents are able to financially support their students by being able to provide a stable home environment, proper health care opportunities to get mental or physical help, and more enrichment opportunities like tutoring, educational trips to museums, sanctuaries, music lesson.

Read More
615 Words | 3 Pages

Indeed, research nationally finds that increasing economic segregation increases the performance of children from high-income families and reduces the educational attainment of students from low-income

Read More
1630 Words | 7 Pages

As a result, schools in wealthy areas receive significantly more funding than schools in poorer areas. This creates disparities in access to resources such as quality textbooks, the latest equipment, computers, and opportunities for extracurricular activities. Students from poor neighborhoods tend to have fewer opportunities to succeed and receive a quality education. Compared to the

Read More
720 Words | 3 Pages

Segregation accomplishes so many other inequalities because you effectively contain a population to a geographic area and suddenly all the other civil rights laws don’t

Read More
542 Words | 3 Pages

Public school funding in America comes from federal, States and local sources, however the majority of those fund comes from local sources, meanly property taxes. The American system creates enormous funding differences between rich and poor community. Richer communities not only have larger property tax bases, but many have higher tax rates. Compare to poor communities with low property taxes bases and low tax rates. When the location and property value influence the allocation of the school fund, it is clear that students living in neighborhoods with least property values will be denied access to the quality of education offered to students living in communities with greater property values.

Read More
452 Words | 2 Pages

In fact, they differ significantly in terms of the quality of infrastructure, resources, and services available to residents or students. This is due to various factors, including historical patterns of discrimination, differences in government funding, and the effects of socioeconomic inequalities. In segregated neighborhoods, there may be disparities in access to quality healthcare, healthy food options, public transportation, and job opportunities. Schools in segregated areas may also lack resources and funding for facilities, teacher salaries, or programs such as art, music, or athletics. These disparities can have long-term effects on the opportunities and outcomes available to individuals living in these areas, such as their earning potential, health outcomes, and educational attainment.

Read More

More about Persuasive Paper: The Connection Between Law And American Culture

Open Document