Discrimination In The 21st Century

As much as some people would like to think that discrimination does not exist in the 21st century, discrimination is still alive in many forms. Discrimination is not limited to one part of the United States. I have found two deplorable examples of discrimination on opposite parts of the country, in states throughout the west and Connecticut. Latino farmers in the west and minority children in Connecticut are being faced with instances of institutional, active and passive racism. Latino farmers went to battle in Washington D.C. over blatant discrimination involving loans that were denied, a lack of disaster relief, in addition to other forms of financial aid that was provided to white farmers (Gutierrez, 2009). In all, there were 81 complaints …show more content…
The USDA, which is the party that the farmers sued, has a history of discrimination, according to former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman who stated, “Good people lost their farmland not because of bad weather, bad crops, but because of the color of their skin” (Gutierrez, 2009). This act of institutional racism also falls under the category of active discrimination, which is a form of discrimination that involves taking action against someone (Parrillo, 110), because the USDA actively thwarted the Latino farmers ability to maintain their jobs by eliminating necessary …show more content…
This state’s education can be vastly improved by providing equal education to minority children, because the state cannot rely on finding several principals like Steve Perry and creating schools the size of Capital Preparatory Magnet School. Passive racism is also another vital issue in Connecticut schools, and it has been implemented through a form of stereotyping. Passive racism is described as, “…one’s silent acquiescence to others’ discriminatory actions…” (Parrillo, 110). A mother of a student at this preparatory school stated that there are certain stereotypes of black children in white schools and there is, "The stereotype that there 's no father in the home, that the parents don 't care; we have a plethora of stereotypes -- that the kids have behavioral problems, that the boys should all be put on Ritalin or something of that sort” (Principal’s tough love, 2009). This is passive racism because no one in these school districts are doing anything to stop these stereotypes, except for Steve Perry. Everyone in a position of power is trying to sweep this under the rug and pretend like the treatment of minority children in this state is not an issue, when this is clearly a monumental