Lewis challenges his audience to take action in the protest that will alert people of the racism African Americans go through and to establish equality no matter the person’s race. Many African Americans suffer through abuse physically and have put up with this in order to gain equality. The government also does not provide aid and instead proceeds to keep the protester’s ideas under wraps from the public. The government, in their own view, ignore the protester’s claim of the officials being unjust to maintain their position of power. Equality is for everyone. The beliefs by which America was built on the support…
The history of America is colored with deep systematic injustice towards people who helped build our nation. Such deep rooted is not uncommon in nations around the globe. In Ta-Nehisi Coates The Case for Reparations, he highlights the United States’ treatment of African Americans as one of the clearest examples of injustice in the history of our nation. The institution of slavery that subjected African Americans to inhumane treatment. Later Jim Crow Laws that classified the African American community as second class citizens and segregated them from white Americans in the south.…
Life: Racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the pages of American history as David Walker describes people of color are the most “Wretched, degraded, and abject set of beings ever lived (1). Exploring from this perspective of Walker’s writing: Appeal in Four Articles, he argues that the punishment inflicted on African Americans were without cause. In comparison to the Israelites in Egypt, or the Helots in Sparta and slavery as it was known for the Romans was in no comparison to the oppression of African Americans in the United States. “But we, (colored people) and our children are brutes!! And of course, are and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their children forever!…
At the root of all injustice, whether past or present, is an underlying human selfishness and flawed decision-making ability. For example, in the past, during the Scottsboro Trial of the 1930s, 9 innocent African American teenagers underwent a wrongful accusation and years of suffering in prison simply because of their race. This injustice highlights selfishness because the women who accused these boys of rape were thinking solely about the protection of themselves; not wanting to arrested for being prostitutes, but not thinking about how the false accusation could and would ruin and torture the boys’ lives. In addition, the jury showcased flaws of the human ability to make choices, as they let the social norm and racist bias of the time…
The New Jim Crow describes how institutionalized racism has taken hold in the American Justice system. In the first chapter, Michelle Alexander runs through the history of racial castes in the United States, from the beginnings of slavery, to Jim crow and eventually the “law and order” rhetoric that developed into the system in place today. The book moves on to point out the server flaws in the justice system. These flaws, according to Alexander, are found within each step of the journey to jail or probation. Areas where racist acts can slip in virtually undetected, whether it be in the arrest, the accusation, or sentencing.…
In the early to mid-1900’s Americans were cruel to African-Americans through racism, segregation, and inequality. The Scottsboro Trials took place in the 1930’s and consisted of nine ‘colored’ men accused of raping two white women on a train. Of course, since life wasn’t exactly fair for everyone during this time, the trials resulted in biased results. Plus, the jury selected, was made up entirely of white men who were clearly in favor of the two white women. The Scottsboro Boys’ Trials eventually shaped the way for the direction in which discrimination in the United States progressed over time.…
Racial Injustice is a major problem in the United States. The 13th amendment enforced by the Senate on December 6, 1865 that effectively abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in America, which whom they thought racial discrimination would no longer cease to exist; all men are created equal. The documentary “13th” directed by Ava DuVernay states that racial Injustice still occurs in our everyday lives; people are treating blacks as if they were in the 18th century. People do not know the struggle that blacks face in America which is racial discrimination. Although the 13th amendment protects the rights of blacks, people still target them as criminals, feel they’re a threat to our country, and treat them as slaves in prison.…
This uneven playing field is evident in both America’s education system and criminal justice system. From United States v. Schooner Amistad, in which the freedom of abducted Africans was questioned, to Plessey v. Ferguson, in which the Court claimed that laws allowing segregation "do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other” (Linder, 2016), the American justice system has been forced to address color. Legal decisions such as Plessey v. Ferguson allowed for racial segregation until Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 (Linder,…
One of the most violent acts against a group of people happened in the America South. The offenders are slavery, racism and religious practices. These unlawful events are a part of American history that had happened sometime before or around the early 1600 through the antebellum era, and beyond the history of World War I. The Negro slaves were considered an inferior race according to “middle-class values,” (Chesnutt 169). The facts are slavery; racism and religion are exposed in history.…
In this past week, we learned about inequality, mainly concerning African Americans. I will be discussing the film White Like Me, along with the readings 5 Faces of Oppression, and Identity/Social Location. White Like Me is a film about inequality among the African American population. In 1959 a man named John Howard Griffin, conducted an experiment using himself as the subject. He did this by making the color of his skin darker by taking medication and spending up to 15 hours under an ultraviolet lamp. Griffin then traveled for six weeks to some of the southern states. He was treated differently now that his skin was darker, Griffin met another African American who told him that he would never fully understand what it is like to live in the…
Many people know that people of color, especially African Americans, were treated quite unfairly around the 1930s - many don’t know, however, that the same horrendous treatment is still present today. In the 1930s, most people held prejudices against those of other races, and those prejudices became known through the decisions of the legal system. Now, it has been about 90 years, and society has yet to make the necessary improvements to counteract the influences of such prejudices on the legal system. True, there have been many changes in the American Legal system over the past years, however, it has not changed drastically enough so as to provide justice to everyone.…
During the time period after the civil war the African-Americans were persecuted harshly and treated unfairly by white southerners. Black men were constantly accused of raping white women even though they had been seduced by the women. For example, William Offet, a freed black man was accused of and found guilty of raping a Mrs. Underwood, a white married woman. In reality, Mrs. Underwood had “invited him to call on” her and when he came to her house she “had no desire to resist him” (Wells-Barnett 32-33). Mrs. Underwood waited four years to confess what had actually happened because she felt she was better than to admit to sleeping with an African-American. The former slaves were also victims of terrible crimes that went unnoticed by the law. For instance, a group of three white men assaulted an Afro-American couple out on a stroll when they “held her escort and outraged the girl” (37). When the “case went to the courts” the men were defended “and they were acquitted” of charges of rape (37). The southern whites got away with their heinous crime due to the girl being an Afro-American and her people were seen as a lesser race.…
A woman’s place is in the home cooking and caring for her family. This may be the belief of some people, but in Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech, he discusses strong female characters and why they are just as important as their male counterparts, explaining the need for equality in the world. He strongly voices his opinion on equality and our need for it. In Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech, he uses multiple literary devices and styles to pull his words together and make his point. Joss Whedon has firm beliefs and feels there is a need for equality.…
For more than 200 years before the civil war blacks weren’t treated equal and even after things didn’t get better only worse. The Williams vs Mississippi case was fought over black suffrage. The court case took place in Washington County, Mississippi. The jury consisted of all whites; the jury ratio was 9-0 (9 white men and 0 black men). Henry Williams was the African American defendant in the case who was charged for murder. He believed that if blacks were not allowed to be part of the grand jury then the murder charged against him should be abolished. Williams claimed that he was being discriminated against and was unfairly sentenced. Williams also believed he qualified for being able to vote hence, the case that the qualifications adapted into the constitution of 1890 were discriminatory towards African Americans as well as poor whites.…
All of us know the feeling of getting blamed for something we haven 't done. With that in mind try imaging getting put in jail for years for a crime you didn’t commit. That was the case for nine black men in Alabama in the year 1931.There was so much physical evidence proving that the nine boys were innocent, however the extreme racism Alabama government officials had towards African Americans is arguably the biggest factor that lead to this injustice.…