Is Racism Finished? Essay Example
Is Racism Finished? Essay Example

Is Racism Finished? Essay Example

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  • Pages: 8 (2008 words)
  • Published: May 13, 2022
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Racism is known to be a believe that its abilities and characteristics is attributed to people just on the basis of color, ethnic and sometimes religion and that others feel more superior than other people. Racism and discrimination are used as the powerful weapons that encourage hatred and fear of others in times of war, conflict and others during economic downturns.

Racism being a set of beliefs and attitude, it also expresses in institutions, structures, and practices that a sense of profound differences validates. It is, therefore, thinking poorly of people over whom one has no control on it or theorization about the human differences. In trying to answer the question of whether racism has finished in this current generation or still exists, the discussion will explore its invention and conception. In its design, the European

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groups and the mistreated Jews will be discussed.

Racism is described to be the negative feelings of one group towards the other and the actions that result from such behavior. Some laws that were formed during the early years were used to trigger the act, like the Jim Crow law in American South that were used to keep the whites and blacks unequal and separated. In the discussion, the rise of modern racism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which deals with the white supremacy and antisemitism, the discrimination of the Jews by the so-called Christians and the Europeans with the Africans. The last chapter in Fredrickson bookmarks the climax of the discussion of racism. Racism is taken on another level making it outside the subject of history to the realm of sociobiology and psychology. The supremacy of the whites reached

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the fullest ideological development in South Africa and in southern parts of the United States, (Fredrickson, George, 1934).

The efforts done to guarantee the community a race purity did not came to be as early officials like the Nazi time in American South used to persecute the Jews. Laws were formed that used to prohibit sexual relations or intermarriage between the Jews and the Gentiles. the racial ideology was at its extreme in Nazi Germany than any other region and the blacks were hanged and even burned to death just to ensure that the southern African Americans respects the color line. With an attempt to end the ideology, before the Second World War, Hitler reinforced through the scientific discussion undermined the racist genetics in order to discredit the racism that had been influential and respectable in both Europe and United States.

Racism was even attacked by nations that result from the decolonization of Asia and Africa together with the civil rights movement in America managed to outlaw the past legalized racial exclusion and discrimination in the year 1960. It was the beginning of the revulsion that is against the logical extreme of racism. However, despite the move by those in the United States, South Africa resists the movement and continued with the act of discrimination against other races. They survived both the Cold War and the Second World War, (Fredrickson, George, 1934). The racial segregation at that time was called the apartheid. There were laws that were passed that banned the marriages and sexual relationships between different groups and formed separate residential areas for those with mixed races as well as those for Africans.

Racism does not require

the support of the law or state nor does it need the ideology that is centered on the concept of the biological inequality, discrimination by individuals and institutions against them that are perceived to be racially different flourish the illusion of non-racist.

There was a new allegation of cultural racism as the use of cultural differences to justify hostility and discrimination against those who come from outside the prosperous nations and the European countries.

In the past, the Jews groups were seen as people who are responsible for the worst possible human crime that happens in their existence, the collectivity for action taken in the group brings a small picture of racism since by that view, and they were discriminated. There was anti-Judaism, a state where hatred started and came to conclusion that those Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were to be killed the name refers to antisemitism and called racism when the believe holds that Jews were perceived to be intrinsically evil.

According to Fredrickson, George (1934), racism was witnessed when the European Christians were more hostile towards the Jews as they were forced into unpopular and putatively sinful works of lending money at interest. Even in the discussion of Christianity matters, there were other Christians who view the Jews people as children of the devil and exclude them from membership in the race where Christ died on the cross. It shows that even in Christianity issues, racism were not excluded in the past as others are being seen more the most Christian than others.

Religious racism grew also in the early centuries in view of Africans the rationale being the myth of the curse of

Ham on one of the passage in the Bible book of Genesis. Ham is said to withdraw the wrath of God by viewing his father when naked and mocked him. The transgression is said to be transferred to his son Canaan and believed to be the ancestors of all the Africans and the result of curse is blackening of the skin. The notion made Africans to be put as slave in many of the countries especially the European countries.

There were times when color-coded racism had small scope for development among the Europeans, it happened when the when the social inequality was based on birth instead of color. However, in the current world where pigmentation is used to compare the black slaves, the Indians, color became one of the several salient identities. In the early years, one had to be black to become a slave in the American colonies despite it being legal and a religious status. Racism tried to be reduced but to a smaller extent some countries like England and France by accepting the black servants imported to their nations to intermarry with the whites who are from the white lower class (Bonilla & Silva, 2014). But during the year 1778, France banned the intermarriage which restricted the black slaves in serving in the French households.

Despite the little moves made by England through intermarriage to curb the act of discrimination, modern racism emerged that is based on physical typology.

According to the Swedish naturalist by the name Carl Linnaeus, there were differences among Europeans, Asians, Native Americans and Africans, through his description of races, his preferences were seen. In his report, Europeans appeared to be

acute and inventive governed by laws while Africans described as negligent, crafty and indolent who are regulated by caprice, (Berg & Wendt, 2011).

The expression is to be condemned as human being are to be viewed in biblical terms as children of God who are endowed with same spiritual activities that God denied it to other creatures. At some points there were some efforts to demote Africans from being human to ape status according to Blumenbach the person who was deemed the father of physical anthropology.

Justifications were also witnessed just to see discrimination of other groups is at remains to be seen, for example, the American South were often seen justifying their allegations of rape cases or attempted rape of the white women by the black men, where the violation lead to many being murdered. Black people were used to be seen as violent sexual predators than their counterparts Jews.

The acts of discrimination and racism which triggered its evolution to some parts and its existence today were fully applied in the American South under Jim Crow, the Nazi Germany and in South Africa under the apartheid rule. Under Jim Crow there was segregation in the American South as they embrace the white man’s burden and the present Philippines helped in disarming the northern resistance and treat the blacks as racial inferiors. The blacks are the victims of such hate filled brutality (Berg & Wendt, 2011).

The laws passed under Jim Crow deprived the black males suffrage rights which they had possessed earlier. During this error, the moves that could have provided the blacks with some opportunities were used by the whites to develop their lines, like in

education, the black education remained inferior. To make matters worse, the blacks were removed from electorate. During the apartheid in South Africa, black people were deprived of their citizenship, there was segregation of medical care, education and other public services and give the black people very inferior services than those of the whites.

When civil rights movement was started in 1960’s, it ended the civil war which eventually lead to the end of slave discrimination that lingered in form of Jim Crow Laws and other forms of racial discrimination. The movement was led by the great man Martin Luther King Junior and Malcolm X. with a massive push from Civil Rights Movement and other Americans of good will, the segregation and racial discrimination will end though others will linger on their attitudes concerning other races, (Berg & Wendt, 2011).

After considering the whole discussion of racial discrimination of the past in the short story, racism is still active and alive. Even though people have been through slavery, segregation and the Jim Crow laws, there is still evidence of racism today.

In America, the society has ended all the rules and legislation that results in racial discrimination, but it is still present in the society. In America, there is still racial discrimination from Caucasian people to their counterparts the African America or the blacks. In life, one is able to display some form of discrimination whether small or big (Bonilla & Silva, 2014). Racism has not finished as now blacks discriminates against the whites because of the past actions of the whites. Today, still in America, whites discriminate against African Americans today is because of hip-hop culture where majority

of the whites sees it as stupidity and ignorance.

Till today, there are some people who think that the white race is considered as the dominant race in the world. Also, many whites feel that they are superior and that they deserve to be treated the best just because the blacks were once slaves to them.

America now accommodates people of many races, color, and cultures, and hating one group does not make them disappear or make their lives harder and yours better off. What people need to understand is that as long we are all human beings, we are all equal in this world and learn to deal with it. It is not something that it will go away because it has been it has been part of the world since the beginning even with Christianity.

There have been efforts to end discrimination by several leaders of different regions of the world especially the blacks just to see the equality prevails in various positions.

One of the famous fighters is the Martin Luther King Junior and Minister Louis Farrakhan. They fought for what they believed in to be right in helping the blacks to get educated and become active. Meanwhile, all the efforts have not guarantee the safety of the blacks.

In the recent move in the streets of United States, we have heard the white police officers killing the blacks, and in return, the black people revenge by doing the same to the whites. Therefore, it concludes that racism has not finished in today's’ generation. The history has been long and frightening because the fight results in conflict and therefore, people should always be vigilant not to get

into the evil again and accept one another despite the color or race.

References

  1. Berg, M., & Wendt, S. (2011). Racism in the modern world: Historical perspectives on cultural transfer and adaptation. New York: Berghahn Books.
  2. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2014). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield
  3. Fredrickson, George M. (1934). Racism: a short history. United Kingdom: Princeton University Press
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