Racism In American Society
Simply put, a representative democracy is a system of government in which all eligible citizens vote on representatives to pass laws for them. As Americans, we elect a president and members of Congress, and also elect local and state officials. All of these elected officials supposedly listen to the populace and do what is best for the nation, state or jurisdiction as a whole. Is this real autotomy of choice? If so does the hypocritical platform that America was founded upon affect our present day lives? Voting officials into office to make decisions for us does not constitute real freedom or liberty of choice. Every decision made in contemporary American government is affected and altered by the way American freedom was developed.
To understand …show more content…
the problematic nature America is founded upon it is important to fully grasp the creation of the country. Founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison among others all founded America on certain inalienable principles. These included the illustrious life, liberty and pursuit of happiness mentioned by Jefferson as inalienable rights. The founders pushed for a war to succeed from Great Britain. This ended up becoming the American revolutionary war. They eventually won in 1783 with an underlining question. How will this new nation govern? The first government implemented was the Articles of confederation. After living years under Great Britain tyrannous rule, the articles contained a very weak central government succeeding rights to individuals and states. However this was proved to fail during at tax protest called the whisky rebellion where the American government was not strong enough to put the rebellion down. This lead the United States to adopt a new form of government. The United States constitution was founded in 1789, and still stands today. It granted equal powers to both the state level and central governments.
America was supposedly founded upon freedom, however this freedom came with an exception. All white, land owning men were granted certain liberties as per the bill of rights. This however left out a vast majority of people living in America during that time period. When George Washington was elected our countries first president in 1789 only 1.3 percent of the population was allowed to vote. Not even all white men were legally allowed to vote. It was not until 1856 that North Carolina became the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement to vote. Women for example regardless of race were not even allowed to vote till 1920. That means women have not even been electing public officials for 100 years yet. How is that possible? That is not something we usually think about when thinking about American freedom.
The most prevalent example of racism in American history is the mistreatment of African Americans.
Imported in from Africa, through the slave trade of the 16 and 1700’s, enslaved Africans became the back bone work force for the American south for almost 200 years. The founding fathers excluded them completely from granting them any rights what so ever, most of which even owned numerous slaves. It was not until president Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 and stated the emancipation proclamation thus freeing slaves and igniting the civil war. Although free from that point of slavery, African Americans were not granted equal protection of the law and granted full legal rights until the civil rights era almost exactly 100 years after the civil war. This led to major race relation problems in America today. We constantly see in the news today, true or not, police targeting blacks much more than any other races throughout the country. Yes we have made massive strides in this specific realm, the hypocritical foundation of our country will always affect how we as us citizens interact and climb the social …show more content…
ladder.
One of the least talked about genocides in world history is the treatment of the American Indians. When Columbus and other explorers came to the Americans from 1492 on, they brought numerous diseases along with them wiping out an estimated 90 percent of the population. After the American Revolution, many Native American lives were already lost to disease and displacement. In 1830 under President Andrew Jackson, the federal Indian Removal Act called for the removal of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials working on behalf of white cotton growers forced nearly 100,000 Indians out of their homeland. The dangerous journey from the southern states to “Indian Territory” in current Oklahoma is referred to as the Trail of Tears in which thousands of Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease. It was estimated that America contained over 10 million natives living there. Less than 300,000 natives were estimated to be alive in America in 1900. This is astonishing that in America would belittled and mistreat such an important ethnic part of its very own population.
Alexis De Tocqueville was a 19th century French political philosopher sent by France to figure out why American democracy was becoming so successful. Tocqueville ended up writing an entire book titled De La Democratie en Amerique about his travels. Tocqueville sought to apply the functional aspects of democracy in the United States to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France. Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. Tocqueville also outlines the possible excesses of passion for equality among men, foreshadowing the totalitarian states of the twentieth century.
However, Tocqueville observed that these social mechanisms have paradoxes, like in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve,” He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself. He stated “There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult- to begin war and to end it.” Tocqueville also critiqued and envisioned a problem that plagues our political world today, money. He stated, “The American government will work until congress realizes it can bribe the American people with their own money.” Tocqueville figured out and examined numerous problems with American democracy almost two hundred years ago, which are still all issues today.
Tocqueville may have been one of the earliest critics of American democracy but Plato was one of the very first political philosopher to scrutinize the problems of democracy as a whole. Plato realized the issues democracy brought about over two thousand years ago while watching Greece go through numerous political problems. He believed that democracy almost always would degenerate into an oligarchy, where the people are governed by a few rich elites. Plato believed that it contained the good of freedom but also the slavery of freedom. Plato uses the "democratic man" to represent democracy. The democratic man is the son of the oligarchic man. Unlike his father, the democratic man is consumed with unnecessary desires. Plato describes necessary desires as desires that we have out of instinct or desires that we have in order to survive. He would even goes as far as to rank democracy toward the end of his lists of “best governments”
Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University analyzed nearly 20 years of data to answer a pretty the question “Does the government represent the people?” “Their study took data from nearly 2,000 public-opinion surveys and compared what the people wanted to what the government actually did.
What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America has essentially no impact at all.” If you take any idea, does not matter how popular or unpopular, it has about a 30 percent chance of passing in congress. This however does not apply to the economic elite percent of Americans. They on the other hand have an about doubled percent chance of passing the legislation they want to see passed. How can America thrive as a nation when an over whelming percent of constituents voices are not heard in government. This is a trend noticed and predicted by the likes of both Tocqueville, Plato and numerous political philosophers before
them.
American Politics today is plagued with numerous problems that halt progress. Corruption from politicians on both the democratic and republican sides of the isle is destroying a nation that has endless potential to succeed. This is why we now see political outsiders and more so extremists such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump surging in the polls. Many Americans are tired of living in poverty with nothing being done to better their specific situation and view candidates like them as people who are going to make a difference to better their lives. How can we do better? We can do better by getting involved and going out to vote for the right person. The best thing that has happened in recent American politics is that voters are going out in primaries and voting in numbers that are unprecedented. The United States has done things not country before has ever accomplished and has produced iconic leaders and thinkers that influence everything we see say or do. America is the greatest country in the world, but it has potential to be even better and strong if we embrace and amend it.
To understand …show more content…
the problematic nature America is founded upon it is important to fully grasp the creation of the country. Founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison among others all founded America on certain inalienable principles. These included the illustrious life, liberty and pursuit of happiness mentioned by Jefferson as inalienable rights. The founders pushed for a war to succeed from Great Britain. This ended up becoming the American revolutionary war. They eventually won in 1783 with an underlining question. How will this new nation govern? The first government implemented was the Articles of confederation. After living years under Great Britain tyrannous rule, the articles contained a very weak central government succeeding rights to individuals and states. However this was proved to fail during at tax protest called the whisky rebellion where the American government was not strong enough to put the rebellion down. This lead the United States to adopt a new form of government. The United States constitution was founded in 1789, and still stands today. It granted equal powers to both the state level and central governments.
America was supposedly founded upon freedom, however this freedom came with an exception. All white, land owning men were granted certain liberties as per the bill of rights. This however left out a vast majority of people living in America during that time period. When George Washington was elected our countries first president in 1789 only 1.3 percent of the population was allowed to vote. Not even all white men were legally allowed to vote. It was not until 1856 that North Carolina became the last state to remove property ownership as a requirement to vote. Women for example regardless of race were not even allowed to vote till 1920. That means women have not even been electing public officials for 100 years yet. How is that possible? That is not something we usually think about when thinking about American freedom.
The most prevalent example of racism in American history is the mistreatment of African Americans.
Imported in from Africa, through the slave trade of the 16 and 1700’s, enslaved Africans became the back bone work force for the American south for almost 200 years. The founding fathers excluded them completely from granting them any rights what so ever, most of which even owned numerous slaves. It was not until president Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 and stated the emancipation proclamation thus freeing slaves and igniting the civil war. Although free from that point of slavery, African Americans were not granted equal protection of the law and granted full legal rights until the civil rights era almost exactly 100 years after the civil war. This led to major race relation problems in America today. We constantly see in the news today, true or not, police targeting blacks much more than any other races throughout the country. Yes we have made massive strides in this specific realm, the hypocritical foundation of our country will always affect how we as us citizens interact and climb the social …show more content…
ladder.
One of the least talked about genocides in world history is the treatment of the American Indians. When Columbus and other explorers came to the Americans from 1492 on, they brought numerous diseases along with them wiping out an estimated 90 percent of the population. After the American Revolution, many Native American lives were already lost to disease and displacement. In 1830 under President Andrew Jackson, the federal Indian Removal Act called for the removal of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials working on behalf of white cotton growers forced nearly 100,000 Indians out of their homeland. The dangerous journey from the southern states to “Indian Territory” in current Oklahoma is referred to as the Trail of Tears in which thousands of Cherokee people died of cold, hunger, and disease. It was estimated that America contained over 10 million natives living there. Less than 300,000 natives were estimated to be alive in America in 1900. This is astonishing that in America would belittled and mistreat such an important ethnic part of its very own population.
Alexis De Tocqueville was a 19th century French political philosopher sent by France to figure out why American democracy was becoming so successful. Tocqueville ended up writing an entire book titled De La Democratie en Amerique about his travels. Tocqueville sought to apply the functional aspects of democracy in the United States to what he sees as the failings of democracy in his native France. Tocqueville speculates on the future of democracy in the United States, discussing possible threats to democracy and possible dangers of democracy. These include his belief that democracy has a tendency to degenerate into "soft despotism" as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority. He observes that the strong role religion played in the United States was due to its separation from the government, a separation all parties found agreeable. He contrasts this to France where there was what he perceived to be an unhealthy antagonism between democrats and the religious, which he relates to the connection between church and state. Tocqueville also outlines the possible excesses of passion for equality among men, foreshadowing the totalitarian states of the twentieth century.
However, Tocqueville observed that these social mechanisms have paradoxes, like in what later became known as the Tocqueville effect: "social frustration increases as social conditions improve,” He wrote that this growing hatred of social privilege, as social conditions improve, leads to the state concentrating more power to itself. He stated “There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult- to begin war and to end it.” Tocqueville also critiqued and envisioned a problem that plagues our political world today, money. He stated, “The American government will work until congress realizes it can bribe the American people with their own money.” Tocqueville figured out and examined numerous problems with American democracy almost two hundred years ago, which are still all issues today.
Tocqueville may have been one of the earliest critics of American democracy but Plato was one of the very first political philosopher to scrutinize the problems of democracy as a whole. Plato realized the issues democracy brought about over two thousand years ago while watching Greece go through numerous political problems. He believed that democracy almost always would degenerate into an oligarchy, where the people are governed by a few rich elites. Plato believed that it contained the good of freedom but also the slavery of freedom. Plato uses the "democratic man" to represent democracy. The democratic man is the son of the oligarchic man. Unlike his father, the democratic man is consumed with unnecessary desires. Plato describes necessary desires as desires that we have out of instinct or desires that we have in order to survive. He would even goes as far as to rank democracy toward the end of his lists of “best governments”
Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University analyzed nearly 20 years of data to answer a pretty the question “Does the government represent the people?” “Their study took data from nearly 2,000 public-opinion surveys and compared what the people wanted to what the government actually did.
What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America has essentially no impact at all.” If you take any idea, does not matter how popular or unpopular, it has about a 30 percent chance of passing in congress. This however does not apply to the economic elite percent of Americans. They on the other hand have an about doubled percent chance of passing the legislation they want to see passed. How can America thrive as a nation when an over whelming percent of constituents voices are not heard in government. This is a trend noticed and predicted by the likes of both Tocqueville, Plato and numerous political philosophers before
them.
American Politics today is plagued with numerous problems that halt progress. Corruption from politicians on both the democratic and republican sides of the isle is destroying a nation that has endless potential to succeed. This is why we now see political outsiders and more so extremists such as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump surging in the polls. Many Americans are tired of living in poverty with nothing being done to better their specific situation and view candidates like them as people who are going to make a difference to better their lives. How can we do better? We can do better by getting involved and going out to vote for the right person. The best thing that has happened in recent American politics is that voters are going out in primaries and voting in numbers that are unprecedented. The United States has done things not country before has ever accomplished and has produced iconic leaders and thinkers that influence everything we see say or do. America is the greatest country in the world, but it has potential to be even better and strong if we embrace and amend it.