Throughout its history, the United States has had countless instances where racial and ethnic tensions were overt and aggressive. For example, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s puts these tensions on display for all the world to see the harsh reality that American democracy was not protecting its minority groups like it was intended. Instead, it was acting against them to benefit the majority. American democracy was created with the intent to protect the rights of the minority from the majority. Today, the United States has come a long way from its grim past of racial segregation.…
Michelle Alexander is a well-respected civil rights lawyer, legal scholar and civil rights advocate, whom teaches at the law of Stanford Law School. Alexandria studied a series of information regarding the similarities between race and criminal justice. Also, Alexandria participated in both private and nonprofit organizations and launched campaign regarding racial profiling, where she served as the leading director of the projects (The new Jim crow.org). The New Jim crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, written by Michelle Alexander takes readers through a series of events that demonstrate the evolution of social movements, and the never ending crisis of the racial caste.…
Ian Haney Lopez, a Professor at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley primarily works in the areas of racial justice and American law. Lopez is also the author of White by Law, The Legal Construction of Race, which presents a critical look at how race has been recognized by law and it’s legal actors such as judges and policy makers throughout history. The author mainly focuses on analyzing prerequisite cases that in affect, have changed the way that race is perceived today. The book particularly focuses on the legal and social construction of whiteness.…
Book Critique: Racial Equality in America, by John Hope Franklin. This paper is developed to display a summary of "Racial Equality in America", by John Hope Franklin, and to make a critique of the book. The first part shows information about the author and the credentials that confirm him as an important spokesman for racial equality in America. Also, after the summary, I will try to give my humble vision on how to change the "obsession" of Americans regarding racism (adjective copied by me from Franklin).…
The great privilege of United States of America is the people of the country have the right to equality. Clayborne Carson an author of the argumentative essay “Two Cheers for Brown vs. Board of Education”. Born in Buffalo, New York; he is an educated scholar who specializes in African American and civil rights history. Carson’s essay is summarizes how Brown affected the outcome of desegregation in public schools. Brown is a Supreme Court decision that ruled public schools to allow African American children to attend predominantly Caucasian schools.…
OUTLINE (Optional) Introduction Throughout American history, we have liberated ourselves from dictatorship of Great Britain, fought in and won many great wars, and is currently boasting to be potentially one of the greatest nation that there ever war. However, there is an important national issue we have failed to completely get rid. Racial inequality is the discrimination against people of color, meaning unfair advantages and disadvantages given to people based off bias of race. Background info/context: Relating back to the book, The Other Wes Moore, the idea of racial inequality within the treatment sector of the healthcare system is prominent.…
During the 1950’s the idea of “separate but equal” continued to be a prominent ideology in the United States, particularly in the Southern states. It was not until after World War II and the Cold War that international concerns provoked Americans to rethink about the domestic issues about human rights within the country. The United States had became the leader in preventing the spread of communism to parts of the world, but refused to realize that segregation and the denial of human rights made the United States existed. The United States was in a way hyprocrite to the causes it was fighting for. In Robert F. Williams’ book, Negroes with Guns, he addresses the international concerns that influenced the strategies pursued by Williams and other civil rights activists.…
The constitution was written to assure that the people are practicing their bill of rights, religion, and to declaration of independency, however it was not complete because it did not provide the Americans with equal chances to pursue happiness. In Racial Formation in the United States, Michael Omi and Howard Winant elaborate on the concept of race, how it evolved, how it changed from science to politics, and how it became a way in which people use to judge others. President Barak Obama also discussed the concept of race during his campaign, in his speech “A More Perfect Union”. He emphasizes that all the citizens in the United States are considered Americans and therefore it is crucial to transcend about the anger, resulted from racism, and…
In the article “In Living Color” by Jana King some views on racism create an inequality on society. Nowadays, people are still thinking that racism is over, I disagree with them, because when I came to New York and I went to school nobody wanted to talk to me just because I could not speak English well. I understood that racism is still used in a way we think it is not racism. Also, there are people who treat colored people as hyphenated because they do not are like them. However, to resolve these problems several institutions have created an affirmative action to help people who suffer from discrimination.…
“The Struggle for Black Equality” by Harvard Sitkoff, summarizes the key elements in the fight for the civil rights of African Americans from 1954-1980. The book was set up in chronological order, each chapter embodying the new step to gain equality. The first chapter is titled “Up from slavery,” it consists of the small actions that took place slowly to assure the equal rights. By the end of the first chapter, the concept of equal rights was introduced more prominently, opening people's eyes to the problem. Nevertheless, there was still doubt in the system and people who did not agree.…
In American society today, the colorblind ideology has changed the way we view and discuss race. In fact, Americans believe that the problems faced during the Civil Rights Movement such as segregation and racism have been resolved; ultimately, believing that it only takes the achievement of the individual to fully reach the American Dream. Colorblindness is viewed as the most logical path to stopping discrimination, through the equal treatment of individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, and culture. Furthermore, the colorblind ideology suggests that racial harmony can be achieved by overlooking or ignoring ones ethnic and racial appearances. The idea that “racism does not exist or matter” is believed to be beneficial to people of color.…
The carceral state includes police, prisons, jails and those that are in the system. However, as you look closer into this system, you realize that the carceral state is more than the justice system- it also affects our society and how our governing systems work. Ideas like class and race play a part into how the carceral state works and who it impacts. America preaches ideas of the American Dream, however, when someone falls victim to the carceral state, they are labelled as second class citizens and are sentenced to, “civil death,” by being prevented from making a life for themselves outside of the system. In order to create a new carceral system, there must be a new political and social environment that is open to changing this damaged system.…
Summary John Arthurs has a unique stance on world hunger and moral obligation and the way that we should handle these issues. He opens up his argument by analyzing one of Pete Singers rules “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. “(666) Arthur believes that rule of life is a flawed one. He counters this statement by giving a scenario using Singers moral rule. Arthur states “All of us could help others by giving away or allowing others to use our bodies.…
Johnson introduces his argument by calling for a sense of American spirit and bringing himself down from his status of a great leader to the level of one of the people in order to emotionally call the American citizens to action, together as one united nation, to fight the discrimination occurring in the country. He highlights the idea that “there is no Negro problem,” “there is no Southern problem,” and “there is no Northern problem,” there is only “an American problem” (Johnson). By using the anaphora “there is no..” followed by groups of people, Johnson emphasize the idea that the issue of equal rights does not belong with one group of people, but their great country as a whole. He therefore unifies all Americans of different groups and backgrounds under one common identity, pleading that they put aside their differences and come together to solve the problem plaguing the nation. By connecting them under one common goal, he not only evokes patriotism, but causes his audience to see that their great country is faced with a threat to its basic principle that “all men are created equal” causing them to condemn the mistreatment of black Americans (Johnson).…
In present day society, six-in-ten Americans say the country needs to continue making changes to assure that blacks have equal rights with whites. In two contrasting articles, both the authors look at racism on very different levels. Edmund Morel tries to bring attention to the problem and wants others to stop it, while Cecil Rhodes feels that white people are the perfect race and that all countries should only be White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. Cecil Rhodes had a very strong faith, one that not many believe in now, but he wanted to spread his faith everywhere. He wanted the race to be White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or WASP for short.…