Economic And Social Inequality Today Essay

Economic and social inequality today can be traced back to settler colonialism. Settler colonialism originated from English colonies which ventured to the Americas. Settlers established colonies there to farm the land and produce raw materials. Raw materials were then exported back to England where they were refined for exporting once more. However, the profit was limited so expansion was necessary. Thus, colonists were required to find more land to use for their colonies. However, there was a large obstacle as the lands colonist desired belonged to natives. This introduced a need to eliminate the natives to use the land. The arrival of settlers in the Americas and their need for land to produce goods kickstarted economic and social inequality through the process of racialization as a result of demand for land and labor. Racialization is the process of forming a race and the grouping of certain people into a particular race. There are two main factors that contribute to racialization: social representation and social constructs. Racialization tends to be a result of ideologies that identify a person as being in a particular group. These ideologies that become popular result in a race being a part of society, thus certain people become represented socially as a certain race. On the other hand, social constructs work with social representation to enforce that representation. For example, laws may be enacted which restrict the rights of a specific race. Laws help to regular…