Structural Racism In America

The history of the United States of America is rooted in hypocrisy. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, the world we know was founded on "equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Yet long before the founders of the country met to draft the Declaration of independence, they infringed on the same principles and rights of others that they sought for themselves. Beneath this shining light of freedom and equality is the infrastructure built on the premise of power, control, and oppression. Structural racism is policies, and practices that create barriers to opportunities and racial disparities. Structural racism has paved the way for the implementation of public health policies and activities such as research and programs that
Slavery was the practice or condition in which African were owned, bought, and treated as property. An estimated 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America (Gates, 2015). Due to slavery, the black population quickly emerged and drastically increased in numbers. During this time, whites were superior and believed it was their burden to maintain control over African Americans who were seen as inferior. Therefore, the master-slave or superior-inferior relationship between whites and black people created a social hierarchy. Whites occupied the upper levels of society while blacks were mere
The Tuskegee project of 1932 is a perfect example of this. The study focused on Black males within Tuskegee, Alabama that had syphilis. Its primary goal was to deny participants treatment to gain insight into the natural course of the disease. During the time of this study, the 400 infected men were deceived; they were made to believe their incidence of disease was merely attributed to the fact that they had "bad blood". A participant in the study stated, "At the beginning of study he thought he had bad blood (Gamble 2016). He didn't know his disease could be cured, instead, he felt pretty good as he received yearly shots." He just thought it was an incurable disease" Despite this participant feeling good about receiving regular medical attention, the men were receiving no treatment even after 1947 when penicillin was widely accepted as the treatment method (Eagle 2012). This is just one example of how structural racism impacted the public health of African