During the 1960’s, Martin Luther King Jr. and other African Americans participated in the Civil Rights movement in hopes of ending racial discrimination and segregation against African Americans. They hoped that future generations of African Americans would have equal rights and as Martin Luther King stated in his “I Have A Dream” speech,“ I have a dream that one day my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of the character” (American Rhetoric). During this time period, James Baldwin wrote The Fire Next Time to convince African Americans to fight for their rights. Although currently, the United States doesn’t display explicit segregation similar to the
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However, this isn’t possible because many African Americans are facing an “endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity”(98). According to Baldwin,many laws in the past that were specific to African Americans have been promoted to prove white dominance in society. He also states that African Americans should not believe that white people are more superior and that they too must try to “achieve authority” and be recognized in society” (99).White supremacy is a form of systematic racism that was clearly evident after the killing of unarmed African Americans such as Michael Brown and Walter Scott have generated many protests against a system that doesn’t punish police brutality. Activist groups such as Black Lives Matter have developed as responses to such horrific events. We can infer that American society does not value black lives the same as white lives because of the cases of mass incarceration, economic inequality, and discriminatory justice system that we hear about in the media. However, allegations against our justice system is handled with belligerence by right wing conservative authoritarians because they believe that liberals take individual cases of African Americans being killed by police officers and misinterpret it as discrimination or argue that unemployed African Americans end up in their situation because of their …show more content…
Jamie Fellner, Senior Counsel with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote in her report “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” that the “costs and benefits of this national ‘war on drugs’ is often disputed ”. However, we cannot debate against African American who are arrested and convicted at higher rates of drug use than other ethnicities. Fellner also questioned the United State’s acceptance of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Many Americans mistakenly believe that African Americans use and sell drugs more often, despite studies proving this not to be true. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, researchers found out that “ five percent of African Americans had a substance abuse disorder, while nine percent of whites had a substance abuse disorder”. Many of us are quick to judge that African Americans are likely to abuse or deal drugs because of the way they are portrayed in the media. However, this is far from the
However, this isn’t possible because many African Americans are facing an “endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity”(98). According to Baldwin,many laws in the past that were specific to African Americans have been promoted to prove white dominance in society. He also states that African Americans should not believe that white people are more superior and that they too must try to “achieve authority” and be recognized in society” (99).White supremacy is a form of systematic racism that was clearly evident after the killing of unarmed African Americans such as Michael Brown and Walter Scott have generated many protests against a system that doesn’t punish police brutality. Activist groups such as Black Lives Matter have developed as responses to such horrific events. We can infer that American society does not value black lives the same as white lives because of the cases of mass incarceration, economic inequality, and discriminatory justice system that we hear about in the media. However, allegations against our justice system is handled with belligerence by right wing conservative authoritarians because they believe that liberals take individual cases of African Americans being killed by police officers and misinterpret it as discrimination or argue that unemployed African Americans end up in their situation because of their …show more content…
Jamie Fellner, Senior Counsel with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, wrote in her report “Race, Drugs, and Law Enforcement in the United States” that the “costs and benefits of this national ‘war on drugs’ is often disputed ”. However, we cannot debate against African American who are arrested and convicted at higher rates of drug use than other ethnicities. Fellner also questioned the United State’s acceptance of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Many Americans mistakenly believe that African Americans use and sell drugs more often, despite studies proving this not to be true. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, researchers found out that “ five percent of African Americans had a substance abuse disorder, while nine percent of whites had a substance abuse disorder”. Many of us are quick to judge that African Americans are likely to abuse or deal drugs because of the way they are portrayed in the media. However, this is far from the