Is Racism a Permanent Feature of American Society?

Is Racism a Permanent Feature of American Society?

Racism is a Permanent Feature of American Society. Racism has been around since the 1750s. If you look at Ancient Greco-Roman slavery, you will see that they enslaved other Caucasians. Even the African slave trade was driven by West African Kingdoms. Racism is going to be around for a long time. Racism is not all about the race of someone. It can also be classified as not accepting someone who is handicap, obesity, the way people dress or there gender. Everyone has some kind of prejudice. People also discriminate other people by what their beliefs are.

Racism is still around after all these years. If it has not died out by now what makes you think it wont be a permanent feature of American society? On August 18, 2011 a guy by the name of Kevin Benton said that during his sophomore year in college, white students harassed him. He was one of the only other African American living on the floor in his dorm that was being tormented. They spat on their doors, tore their posters off the wall, and banged on their door at four in the morning. The white students kept doing this trying to get them to move out. So instead of him fighting back, one day during the dorm meeting he brought it up and all the rest of the kids did not say anything they just sat there and stayed quiet. As you can see this guy was being harassed and told the people over the dorm, which were more likely to be white, and they did not do anything about it.

On September 11, ten years ago, the Twin Towers were knocked down by Muslims. Now more people, then before this happened, really did not like them. What happened that day affected everyone who is American, but it is not fair to continue to propagate hate and distrust of a group of people who may share some commonalities with a group of people who did something terrible. While Americans ask why something so terrible happened to them, why they were attacked, why they were singled out and hurt in ways that the country is still recovering from, they forgot something. They forgot that the hatred of the Muslim people as a whole is not justified. To be honest, now that I am writing this paper I now understand you cannot judge everyone by their cover. Get to know them and then judge them. All white people are not friendly, but some are.

Even poor white people have tended to support institutions such as slavery and segregation rather than coalescing with the black to fight against common social disadvantages such as unemployment and poverty. Most of these poor white people had a chance to be stuck up just like the rest of them they just choose the wrong path. There will always be racism in American society, until someone actually get rid of these dumb laws.

Also there is still a KKK (Ku Klux Klan). The Ku Klux Klan is a racist, anti-Semitic movement with a commitment to extreme violence to achieve its goals of racial segregation and white supremacy. More than 40 different Klan groups exist, There are over a hundred different Klan chapters around the country, with a combined strength of members and associates that may total around 5,000. The Ku Klux Klan first emerged following the Civil War as America’s first true terrorist group. At first, the Ku Klux Klan focused its anger and violence on African-Americans, on white Americans who stood up for them, and against the federal government which supported their rights. Times of rapid social change, added more categories to its enemies list, including Jews, Catholics (less so after the 1970s), homosexuals, and different groups of immigrants. The Ku Klux Klan was overshadowed in the late 1990s and early 2000s by growing neo-Nazi activity; however, by 2005 neo-Nazi groups had fallen on hard times, with many groups collapsing or fragmenting. This collapse has helped create a rise of racist skinhead activity, but has also provided new opportunities for Klan groups. In addition, in the early 2000s, many communities in the United States began to experiences a significant influx of immigrants, especially Hispanics, for the first time in their histories. A single-issue movement opposing immigration has helped create fear and anxiety about immigration in the minds of many Americans. Many Ku Klux Klan groups have attempted to take advantage of that fear and uncertainty, using anti-immigration sentiments for recruitment and propaganda purposes, and to attract publicity.

Some true facts about racism are black youths arrested for drug possession are 48 times more likely to wind up in prison than white youths arrested for the same crime under the same circumstances. Black and Latino men are three times more likely than white men to be stopped by the police and have their cars searched – even though white men are four times more likely to have weapons or drugs. White men with a criminal record are more likely to be called back for a job interview than black men with no record, even when their education and experience are the same. Students of color are far less likely to be put in honors courses even after you take test scores and grades into account. Students of color are more than twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school even though they are not much more likely to break school rules than whites. So now you see my supporting facts that racism is a permanent feature of American society. Its will always be around. No matter what people tell there children or teachers tell there students.