What Is Racial Discrimination In America

Racial minorities in America face discrimination despite the effort for equal rights. From the color of your skin, to the way you dress, to your religion. Even though America has progressed significantly after a few decades, people are constantly being discriminated in America for minimal reasons.

Racism exists everywhere, all around actually. Even in our criminal legal system, a man of color is 6 times as likely to be convicted, and a Hispanic is 2.3 times more likely. Black men account for more than 50% of the jail, and prison population. “1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.”(Jamal Hagler 8 facts..). Over 65% of black men serving life in prison are

And not only blacks were segregated, but Mexicans and Chinese people. With Jim crows around from 1877 to the 1950s, people of color could not play games, eat with, or even go to school with white people. A black man could not even have a nurse that was white. But many movements changed these rules. For example Brown vs. Board of Education let people of color go to school with whites, which was a big step toward “equality”. PG.2

In 1948, Samuel J. Battle was hired as the first police officer in history. The firsts police officers were not permitted to arrest white men, also black police officers were unable to operate out of the regular police stationed. In Atlanta, black police officers were forced to operate out of the basement from the local “colored” YMCA. The mayor and police chief of Atlanta were worried that if black men in uniform showed their faces in headquarters, the white cops would riot and attack them," Karen Grigsby Bates. According to 1947 newsweek article "estimated that one-quarter of Atlanta policemen were, in fact, members of the Ku Klux

Which led to the events of Rosa Parks, Brown vs. Board of Education, and the Birmingham bombing. Rosa Parks arrest led to the “Montgomery Bus Boycott”, which lasted 381 days. The boycott resulted in the U.S Supreme Court ruling segregation on public transportation unconstitutional. The Brown vs. Board of Education outcome was that the segregation violated the 14th amendment, and was therefore unconstitutional. With the Birmingham church bombing, it ultimately helped influence the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Today, as in 2018, racism is on the rise. Especially with the recent election of President Trump. Catherine E. Shoichet from CNN took a poll in 2016 asking the question “Is racism on the rise?” Almost half of Americans agree that racism is a big problem today. A recent issue took the spotlight in August 2017, when Cassandra Merlin’s 8 year old son was “accidently” hung by a group of older teens in front of his older sister. Merlin’s son was airlifted to the hospital, he survived the