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Racial Discrimination and Our Society

Racial Discrimination is a phenomenon that can be traced back to centuries. It is not something that started at a specific time or in a certain area. Rather it has been since always, in all parts of the world. Racial discrimination means the discriminatory and unfavourable attitude towards someone because the race they belong to is different, and is disliked. The feelings of irrational hatred, dislike, and prejudice are linked to the concept of racial discrimination. One of the commonly victimized races is African Americans or those with black skin tone. The US has been a hub of racism before they got their equal civil rights. In 1982 the unemployment rate in the US was 10.45 and twice was for the African Americans that is 20.2% (Simpson and Yinger). There was a movement in the US called the Civil Rights Movement that aimed at getting equal civil rights for every race. The movement turned out to be fruitful and the law was passed to give everyone equal civil rights. The world has changed a lot after the technology took over. There is a common notion found in many of the white people that only KKK members and white supremacists perpetuate racism, and it has nothing to do with us. However, it is not realized that the implicit racial bias is shown towards the other races and we ignore that. Though in different form and shapes than in the past, still racism exists in our society, and we need to devise a way to eradicate it from roots. But to do this we first of all need to realize our racial attitudes. To eradicate racism from our society from roots, we need to realize that racism is our problem and we have to change our implicit racist biases towards African Americas and other races.

In America, racism has been an issue for the centuries. The black or the African Americans were treated like trash in the past years before the law got passed and they got equal civil rights. That all resulted because of a movement that occurred during the 1950s in the US for the equal rights of minorities, more specifically African Americans. Racism in America has not been fully eradicated. In his book “Racism and Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance” Jeff states that over the past the years, there have been dramatic examples of security and surveillance (Jeff, p.2) The African Americas have to go through discriminatory situations on a daily bases even today. People do not realize that racism is not only about hateful words and speeches. If this was so we could say that racism has been reduced to a greater degree because not everybody uses hateful speeches or words explicitly. Rather racism it is much more than that, and not all the time it can be taken as impeachment of law. For example, the white person standing in the lift closes her bag to her, when a black person enters the lift, or when police handcuff a black person in public thinking straight away that the black person must be faulty without even knowing the background of the incident. This kind of racist biases lies deep within people without them even realizing that it is a kind of racism that affects the person who is the victim of such discrimination.

Another common belief is found in the people that racism is only found in the Ku Klux Klan members and the so-called white supremacists. It is so because it is rather easy to target a person wearing a pointy hat and a white sheet draped around them and burning crosses in the streets when the topic of racism is opened. Suddenly these kinds of images appear in our mind when we talk about racism. The problem is that we do not realize while pointing fingers towards others that we are segregating ourselves from them thinking of ourselves as innocent and pure. People get easily into great debates with the white supremacist people on the topic of racism and overtly oppose racism. However, the important fact that is forgotten is that even though they oppose with such forget arguments, they forget that they are also in the queue of those getting benefits from the sinful legacy of racism. Black people Are the topmost victim of racism in America and the word overall. Francisco Leite in his research states that since childhood the question of who am I? is there in the mind of a black person, and when they look for the answer I the media and society around them they get to realize that they are the victims of racism due to the sense of displacement that arises because of the answers (Francisco, p.134).

Intentions of a person play an important role in every action of him. If someone does something wrong to a person of some other race and has no intentions of doing so, then he would be resented later because of that. If he is good in general to the people of other races then he would probably be sad over unjustly accused of being racist. Unfortunately, this is the problem with our society that the people sometimes are not hurting others because of their intentions rather because of their inattentions. People do not realize that the others are harmed by the large social forces that are out of the personal control of someone, but they benefit the, in an unjust manner then the inattentiveness can be hurtful to others. If the attention is played to the ways of how racism affects others it can be realized that the racism is not just about a few people who explicitly claim to be racist, nor it is about just hateful words. Because of our lack of attention racism continues to benefit the white people and it brings disadvantage to the others. There is a need to separate inattention from intention so that people realize that there is no need to be defensive in such a situation, rather simply apologizing would be more comforting. The past experiences can be taken as a lesson for the future to not make mistakes.

As it is clear now that sometimes, racism is being practised even by those who know better about it but do not realize while practising it. This being the reason it cannot be said that racism is only the practice of ignorant people. Racism is perpetuated even bib those who reject white supremacy and apparently they are against it. Racism can be practised by anyone from any institution. For example the clergy who have academic degrees have been found arguing about the slavery on religious basis, scientists have claimed to establish the lowliness of other races to Caucasians by pointing out head perimeter and other bodily "evidence" for the white man's supremacy, lawyers have been in this business too, many made cases for the “separate but equal” schools for the African American children. In 2014, (SFFA) filed a complaint against Harvard University under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act on behalf of Asian American students (Hans A., p.3). It does not end here, even the white politicians with college degrees have given hateful remarks about white majorities with the black and brown people living there. This proves the fact that racism has nothing to do with the fact that a person is ignorant or not.

With the passing time, the world has been in the more and more interracial relations. It is important for the world to see more and more congregations but it will not be enough to end racism. Even inside multiracial faith populations, racism has occasions to maneuver. Sociologist Korie Edwards once conducted research in a church to study the multiracial congregations. He found out that the white dominance in the church remained still, even after their number was reduced to a minority. The point to be made here is that racial discrimination continues to happen in the multiracial communities as well, so we need to talk about the issue until it is resolved.

It is a common belief within the people who have friends from other races, that their friends are not the victim of racism. If they do not tell them about what they face it does not mean that they do not go through this. They may not tell their white friends because of a lot of reasons. A common belief is that they get to benefit from talking about racism, they get sympathies of others by playing a race card. The thing to be noted here is how much benefit they get from playing the "Race Card".

While racial discrimination is against the law still there are ways in which it operates in society. Michelle Alexander argues that in the war against drugs during the 1980s, resulted in the imprisonment of many of the colour people through prison sentences. There are laws that can report the imbalanced punishing practices and the damaging outcome of over-policing poor neighbourhoods. But laws are not enough. The relationship between legislation and racial discrimination is always intricate and yet interconnected. We have to advocate for better ethnic justice in all areas of our society and at all levels of government.

Racial discrimination is not an issue that can be taken so lightly. We as a society have to open our eyes to the fact that racial discrimination still exists in our society and is not uprooted fully. The world has evolved in many ways and so are the ways of operating racism. It may have changed its shape and form but still, it does exist. We need to be responsible for the action, thoughts, and the words we produce, if they are hurting others because of the racism underlying, we need to reshape ourselves and be more sensitive towards the feelings and emotions of others. We can simply put ourselves into their shoes, just to find out whether something we do is discriminatory in terms of race or not.

Works Cited

Jeff, Shaniz. Racism And Borders: Representation, Repression, Resistance. Algora Publishing, 2019.

Francisco, Leite. "The Everyday Pain Of Racism Of Brazilian Black Women And The Effect Of Counterintuitive Ads For Its Reduction: A Grounded Theory Study". Communication And Society, 2017, Accessed 11 Apr 2019.

Simpson, G. E., and J. M. Yinger. Racial and Cultural Minorities: An Analysis of Prejudice and Discrimination. Springer US, 2013.

von Spakovsky, Hans A. "Racial Discrimination at Harvard University and America's" Elite" Institutions. Legal Memorandum. No. 236." Heritage Foundation (2018).