Racism

Running head: RACISM 1

Running Head: RACISM 6







Racism
April Benson
Ashford University
SOC 203 Social Problems
Melissa Willis
May 4, 2015






Racism


Have you ever felt superior or inferior towards another because of dissimilar characteristics? Whether those feelings were silent or expressed, the notion of racism attaches itself to such behavioral instincts. "Over the last 200 years, the country has struggled with the legacy of racism" (Messinger, 2006, p. 2). This ongoing and, seemingly never ending, social problem has engulfed the United States and the world throughout time. This paper will lend an informative unbiased argument that declares racism as an ongoing struggle throughout history. Racism affects our cultural and individual achievement, impacts social institutions by its structural inequality, and creates chaos and animosity between the people and those enforcing the law.

To believe you are superior to another individual or race because they do not have the same skin color, culture or beliefs as you may have is, in fact, racist. Do you believe we are all created equal? The color of skin, style of clothing and other differences can lead one to believe he is superior to another. "In Egyptian representational art, non-Egyptians, usually Africans and Asians, are depicted as distinct. Differences are particularly evident in hairstyles and clothes" Rattansi, 2007, p. 13). Since the beginning of time, there have been incidents wherein another culture declared its superiority and disregarded the rights and needs of all others not willing to share the same beliefs. Looking into the Bible, one can not argue that the Romans took delight in torturing Jews and those who followed Jesus. The hierarchy was the hand that ruled and those who did not believe or follow would be tortured and killed. And, from 250 BC to 400 AD, "the Roman Empire came increasingly staffed and run by non-Romans from a wide variety of regions and cultural backgrounds" (Rattansi, 2007, p. 14). More surprising, is the fact that "Emperor Septemus Severus (193-211AD) was black, as evidenced by a contemporary portrait) (Rattansi, 2007, p. 15). However, though differences in appearances were often the leading cause for racism, some cultures still found themselves divided regardless the similarities. With the Greeks, classes were divided, despite their similarities, with the belief that "someone who did not speak Greek, someone who babbled, could only speak 'barbar'" (Rattansi, 2007, p. 14). Hence, the term 'barbarian.' Here, political views, much like those not willing to put their faith in the Roman Empire, played a key part in the separation and racial inequality. "The key distinction between Greeks and barbarians had nothing to do with physical appearance, still less something as artificial as skin color. It represented the difference between people who, like the Greeks, accepted an ideal of the political or politikos, a combination of citizenship and civic virtue, and those who preferred to live under authoritarian rule" (Rattansi, 2007, p. 14).

In addition, it is evident that discrimination can be found in all parts of the world throughout history. Korgen and Furst (2012, ch. 4.7) inform us that during not only the 1840's and 1850's but also during the recession in the 1870's and 1880's, "Chinese immigrants in California were attacked by mobs of White men who resented their competition for jobs during the gold rush" (Japanese American Citizens League, 2003; Pfaelzer, 2007). Also, the infamous Christopher Columbus who, in the late 1490's, had fleets of men and ships in promise of finding land, gold and slaves. Once he embarked on the land inhabited by the Arawak Indians and seeing the tiny gold ornaments they wore in their ears, "it led Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold" (Zinn, n.d.). Columbus forced many of them into captivity. Many men, women and children were enslaved and forced to find more gold. Thousands died while being held as a slave to Columbus' fleet of men. When he saw that no gold was to be found and had, "the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island" (Zinn, n.d.).

Racism continued with brutal force and consequences that affected the entire world when, in the 1940's, Adolf Hitler carried out the persecution and genocide of an almost entire Jewish population. And throughout World War II and the Holocaust, many nations became allianced in order to end the inhumane acts throughout Germany. Ongoing, was the issue of racism and structural inequality throughout America. In the 1800's, plantations and slavery entrenched segregation and racially charged tenant-farming and sharecropping systems and an acrimonious struggle for the racial integration of businesses and public schools (Messinger, 2006, p. 2). Slavery has been an ongoing issue between whites and blacks and still remains today. "The legacy of slavery and racism in America and the history of what John C. Calhoun and other Southern leaders of the 1800's called 'American peculiar institution' has not gone unnoticed. Neither has the psychological damage that remains as baggage carried out by the descendants of both the slave and the slave owner" (Williams, 2012).

With the segregation of whites and blacks in America and the racial inequalities came the distribution of wealth and government assistance. Messinger (2006, p. 5), states that "Since the creation of the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC), social conservatives have argued that welfare recipients are inherently lazy and flawed individuals who needed to be forced to work to earn any financial support provided by the government, with hope that they might develop a 'work ethic'" (Abromowitz, 1995). The structural inequality found in many social institutions today "is deeply embedded in medical, political, economic, educational, and religious policies and practices" (Williams, 2012).

In conclusion, the struggle for power and dominance between ethnicities and cultures creates a struggle for achievement and remains an issue amongst social institutions and society throughout the world. Will racism ever come to an end? My thought is, unfortunately, it will always be an issue. In order to reduce racism, though, we can begin by teaching unification as a nation in our homes and at school.

WORKS CITED

1. Korgen, K. & Furst, G. (2012). Social problems: Causes & responses. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
2. Messinger, L. (2006). History at the table: Conflict in planning in a community in the rural american south. American Journal of Community Psychology, 37(3-4), 283-91. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10464-006-9051-6. Retrieved from http://www.EBSCOhost.com
3. Williams, G. L. (2012). Embracing racism: Understanding its pervasiveness & persistence. Multicultural Education, 20(1), 42-44. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1495448039?accountid=32521
4. Rattansi, A. (2007). Racism : A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, GBR: Oxford University Press, UK. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com
5. Zinn, Howard. (n.d.). History Is A Weapon: A People's History of the United States. Retrieved from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html