Similarities Between The Black Power Movement Of The 1960s And 1970's

987 Words4 Pages

Level 1: The quote by Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, emphasizes the informative aspect of the Black Power Movement - the fear of homosexuality and emasculation among Black men. Newton's assertion that some Black men's instinct is to resort to violence towards homosexuals and to suppress women's voices due to their own insecurities reflects a complex interplay of historical, societal, and cultural factors. During the Black Power Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the emphasis on reclaiming Black masculinity as a form of resistance against systemic racism was major. Black men were usually portrayed as hyper-masculine in contrast to the emasculation they experienced under a white supremacist society. The fear of being perceived …show more content…

This discrimination has been deeply rooted, affecting power dynamics and social structures that have shaped our society. The 1960s saw the end of Jim Crow laws, which was a big step forward in the battle against racial segregation. But even though the laws were gone, the effects of them stuck around in the form of racism that was built into the way things worked in America. While the most obvious signs of racism went away, there were still smaller ways that people were treated unfairly based on their race, leading to unequal opportunities in things like housing, education, and jobs. The way racism has been passed down in America from the days of Jim Crow to the more recent War on Drugs shows just how deeply ingrained inequalities based on race are in our society. The War on Drugs, which kicked off back in the 1980s, unfairly targeted Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, resulting in a lot of people from those communities getting locked up and pushed even further to the fringes of society. The tough laws and aggressive policing tactics used back then only made existing racial gaps even wider, trapping communities of color in a cycle of poverty and powerlessness. The way systemic racism has evolved just shows how power dynamics and social structures have kept racial inequalities going strong in America. The fact that policies like the War on Drugs hit minority communities harder really drives home how deeply ingrained systemic racism is and how it keeps influencing people's opportunities and outcomes based on race. The fact that racial inequalities still exist in America today shows why it is important to understand how systemic racism has evolved from the Jim Crow era to the War on Drugs. Even though we have made some progress in getting rid of racist policies, we still need to deal with the deeper, underlying issues that continue to cause racial