African American Scapegoat Research Paper

In our country, from the beginning of its roots we saw a negative result because of this lack of tolerance against people who were not white, at times when there major social, economic, or political upheavals was taking place in the U.S. It was at these times that some groups would blame recent arriving immigrants or ethnic/religious groups different from their own for the troubles that America was experiencing. As a result, it was not uncommon for racist attitudes do develop against these scapegoats, their perception that their chosen scapegoat was un-American and harbored alien ideas which were a threat to the American way of life. Those threats had to be dealt with even if it meant violating the Constitution or an American’s basic civil rights, as we saw in the current class, the Native American, the stealing of their land, the desecration of their holy areas, the incarceration and murder; in addition to the U.S. government breaking the contracts with the natives when it was beneficial to the white people and later on with Hollywood, portraying the natives as savages in the movies of cowboys and Indians, not as people trying to defend their land from the invading terrorist and in the present time, the government still does not want to give back the sacred land the Native Americans are requesting to be returned to …show more content…
Also, the history of African-American with all the years of suffering under slavery, the subjugation and laws that suppressed them in the past and in the present, laws that maintain a great number of African-Americans incarcerated for no motive at all or for minor