Race And Racism Essay

Race and racism have been among the history of United States and continue to impact of society. For one to say that racism no longer amidst us, is a blind accusation that can be proven false with many proofs. Although, to find the origin and theories of race and racism can be difficult. By analyzing documents from the past we can discover where race and racism might have risen from. Some of the texts that are able to aid us are End Notes, From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, Bratton Brand, Baltimore Epistolary.
End Notes is a collection of articles that addresses broad matter of subjects but, in Volume 4 the title is presented as Unity In Sepearation. This subtitle is more fitting to the topic we will be discussing, theories and histories of
race and racism. In End Notes a use of race is clearly define in the text, “race is a marker for the most insecure fractions of the US labour force, who are inevitably hit disproportionately by generally declining conditions.” Analyzing this statement actually does support our desire to find its meaning. Since White Americans are taking the jobs that are well paying, better benefits, and are less likely to be removed from the job. Also the reason Blacks are not able to get a stable job is because many African Americans have to spend time is prison, which reduces the opportunity to obtain a career. Thus from this article we are able to interpret that race exists to draw the line to distinguish the labour that one race will bear.
From Slavery to Mass Incarceration, written in January – February 2002, is an article that analyzes the idea that African Americans have moved on from being slaves in the past but now is targeted for incarceration now.
Lois Wacqaunt states that race was created by slavery, Jim Crow, and the ghetto. Explaining to the readers that each of these things are what keeping the African Americans in their place. Slavery dehumanized the Blacks, Jim Crow kept Blacks from doing, essentially, anything, and ghetto was abled to keep them out of contact with the Whites. Therefore, the race’s theory and history came from America’s power to contain
Africans.
Bratton Brand is an excerpt from an articled called Police Power and Race Riots and from text the author quotes an officer who says, “Race is always a distinguishing factor, no way around that… it is because these are the communities that have street crime… If you take the numbers as raw proportions the complexity is lost.” Another officer mentions that people are caught doing things wrong. It is easy to say race. From the two quotes that were mentioned, we can assume that race comes from people who do not review the facts in front of them, but rather make accusations that could be false.
Baltimore Epistolary is a collection of tweets that were posted online during the Baltimore riot. Among hundreds of tweets we are able to see that creation of racism is from the law enforcements that are abusing their power to control and suppress the African American community in Baltimore. For example, one tweets say that they will not stop rioting until couple of officers are killed, another one says that they have been doing this for centuries and questions people why they are noticing it now, which is very true. From the earlier times the idea of superiority of one race has been among us. Although, in this situation that idea has attached itself so that a law enforcing officer is the one that is creating an atmosphere that African Americans are the ones that are being demeaned.
From analyzing these four documents and trying to reveal the theory and the history of race or racism, I can make a definition that reveals my personal understanding of where the theory and history of race or racism comes from.
Race is defined as a successful way of one race, with a mindset of superiority over other, suppressing the other race by manipulating their ability to grow or prosper. The source of my definition of race was From Slavery to Mass incarceration and the reason is the author states that blacks were contained by using slavery, Jim Crow, and the ghetto. Although the definition that was created was not a direct citation from the article, but by understanding of the piece, I was able to construct a suitable definition of
race.