The Role Of Racism In America

Racism has existed in America for a very long time. Civil rights activist, Al Sharpton, once said, "As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, it's existence is undeniable." Racism has lived in America for a very long time and Al Sharpton acknowledges that racism still lives on in America today. Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable. Racism is all over the world but in early America, racism started as the settlers came and persecuted …show more content…
First, the Europeans thought the Native Americans were savages and it was the colonists' "destiny" to help civilize them though Christianity and European culture. This idea eventually led to multiple attempts to wipe out the Native American race and led to the construction of Indian reservations. Also in the 17th century, arrived slaves, who were captured people generally from various parts of Africa. These slaves were stripped of their names and identities and we're constantly being tortured by their white slave owners, primarily in the southern states to work in farms and other labor-intensive toils. Once slavery became illegal, discriminatory laws were put in place to keep African Americans from owning property, voting, and obtaining citizenship, just because they were black. For example, literacy tests were put into place to restrain African Americans from voting. Approximately 40 to 60 percent of blacks were illiterate, due to poor education, and these laws only made the situation worse. Another discriminatory act upon the African Americans, is the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson act. Within this act, the "Black Code" laws were placed into effect to restrict the opportunities of African Americans. The Black Code stated that, "These laws defined which people were considered colored. These codes limited the types of …show more content…
Through racism comes prejudice, but these two concepts are different. Prejudice is defined as a person negatively pre-judging another person or group without getting to know their beliefs and thoughts. Jim Wallis once stated, "Prejudice may be a universal human sin, but racism is more than inevitable consequence of human nature or social accident. Rather, racism is a system of oppression for a social purpose. In the United States, the original purpose of racism was to justify slavery and its enormous economic benefit." (Wallis, Jim). He further explains that racism was not a coincidence, but was used to justify the use of slavery for our own economic benefit. Meanwhile, prejudice is almost used as a survival a mechanism. For example, if you see a wild animal rushing towards you, you will automatically assume that it's going to attack you. But, it could be just coming up to you to lick your face. On the other hand, if you're racist, you would automatically hate the animal rushing towards you regardless of its intention. Nonetheless, racism and prejudice are two separate ideas that need to be separated to bring awareness to racism. With America's advancement in ending racism, intermarriage and biracial children play a factor in this. "Fourth, increasing intermarriage and admixtures of people's have blurred those physical features that traditionally were