How Does Race Affect Society

Race is something that has impacted everybody since the day they were born even though it is something that people cannot control. Ever since humans created the idea of race, people of color have been discriminated against while white people have gotten all of the privileges. Whites have been seen as superior and therefore they deserved more than people of color. Over the years, historical events, such as slavery, and politics have greatly influenced race. Some of these influences can be seen in the book Black No More by George S. Schuyler. In this book the main character, Max, is black and does not get as many opportunities as everyone else. Then a new operation comes out that can change a black man white and Max immediately goes to get it
Many historical events have contributed to make race what it is today and one of the most influential was Bacon’s Rebellion. This event was when poor whites and poor blacks banded together and fought against the wealthy whites. However, the influential part was not necessarily the rebellion itself but the outcome of it. In an interview with Audrey Smedley, she talks about how Bacon’s Rebellion was probably the most important one of it’s time. She says, “Bacon’s Rebellion was the catalyst the caused the leaders of the colonies to try to separate the poor and keep them from being united” ( ). In order to separate the poor whites and the poor blacks the leaders would give the whites more privileges and then take some away from the blacks. This caused the whites to believe that they were better than the blacks. Therefore, the poor whites started to associate themselves more with the wealthy whites and started distancing themselves from the poor blacks. The result of this was that the
There are many groups of people today that are considered white that used to be considered people of color. In the book Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White the author, David R. Roediger, talks about just that. He says that groups of people such as Greeks, Italians, Hungarians, and Polish all used to be considered colored ( ). This is influential for race because whole groups of people who were discriminated against and seen as inferior became equal to whites and had all of the same rights and privileges. Also, it shows that race is an ever changing concept for the soul reason of keeping the white race as the majority. As the white population dwindled down and the number of people of color grew, the white race was at a risk of losing the majority. Therefore, they would slowly incorporate different groups of people, such as Greeks and Italians who were considered colored, into the white race so it would remain the majority and they could stay superior. This concept can be found in Black No More as well. The operation that turns people of color into white people just recently came out and there are tons of black people surrounding the sanitarium. To keep the order, there is a group of black guards by the door. They are described as, “Grim Irish from Hell’s Kitchen, rough Negroes from around 133rd Street and 5th Avenue (New York’s ‘Beale Street’) and