For this assignment, I selected three articles; one each from Forbes and The Economist, and an article from the “Opposing Viewpoints in Context” section of Gale, written by Sisi Zhang. These pieces all speak to the same theme: racial wealth inequality is real and is exacerbated by poor education, increased incarceration, and public policy.
America prides itself on being one of the most effective democratically governed counties. The idea of the American dream is that all people have equivalent political freedoms and a responsive government. However the effectiveness of social equality is being threatened by increasing inequality in the United States. Economic inequality in the US has expanded drastically. The wealth gap has had drastic changes over the past 35 years. What’s more, specifically, the rich have gotten a lot richer. Almost everybody who talk about it says that economic inequality must be reduced.
Many individuals today have different point of views on how the United States of America became what it is today. For instance, point of views such as how society learned to function the way it does, the law and order in place, and ultimately, how circumstances have developed throughout history. Unfortunately, institutional/institutionalized racism, also known as systemic racism is also a concept that has settled and is grown to be quite predominant in the United States all through times past. Systemic racism continues to take place in settings such as banks, courts of law, government organizations, school systems, and the like. However, similar to any other challenge, there are steps to end systemic racism.
In my opinion, racial injustice is still a problem in the United States criminal justice system. While the circumstances of the Trayvon Martin case did not affect me personally, it had a large impact on Miami-Dade County. I am friends with a bunch of students who attended the same public high school as Trayvon. However, while I live five minutes from that institution, the private school I attended was thirty minutes away, in Broward County. Thus, I could hardly sympathize with my friends back at home. But regardless, everyone in the democratic South Florida area, including myself, were enraged by the racial influence of the not-guilty verdict. Basically, I believe that while murder can sometimes be accidental, murder is murder. No matter who
Have race relations in the United States today improved since the 1930’s? Is it better, worse, or the same?
In the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not legal to keep public schools segregated by race. This was a significant success for minority students, but they still have a long way to go (“...Look…”). In 2015, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released data that included a statistic stating that 40% of the enrollment for schools that had gifted programs was Black and Latino students, but only 26% of those students were in the gifted programs (Hsieh). Gary Orfield wrote on a similar topic that “We have become a nation that accepts...unequal [classrooms]” (Orfield). A lot of racial minority student are separated into different classes with a lower standard of education, even if they should be in a more advanced course (Darling-Hammond). Racial disparity in advanced courses in high schools today is caused by students of color not being in gifted programs earlier in their education; being one of the only students of their race can make racial minority students feel isolated and uncomfortable and the disparity limits opportunities for them in their future.
America and its people have worked hard to create a home in which everyone is treated, and feels equal. We’ve fought wars, held protests, and lost many lives in situations where we were fighting for fair treatment. After all of these sacrifices, it's safe to say that Americans have the right to love, and cherish the equality that their home presents them with, but to an extent. Equality in society, government, and basic human interactions should always be kept, and held with great importance. However, we also need to keep in mind that we are not the same people. This is where the government in the story, ‘’Harrison Bergeron,’’ gets out of hand. They tried to make their citizens equal by making them the same which prevents
Racism and equality have something that has been going on for a long time now, dating back to all the way when Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. The topic racism is something that needs to be changed; we do not need it in the world we live in right now with everything that has been going on. The major thing that is going on right now is the topic of how cops treat African Americans. We have seen many cases of the cops shooting and killing blacks the past few years, and it is something that is becoming a major issue. “For example, seven-in-ten blacks and about one-third of whites (29%) say blacks are treated unfairly as whites in the court”. (Pew Research Center p.1). This is something that we need to put an end too. Changing the way people are looked at in the world is on us, and it doesn 't help that seven-in-ten blacks get mistreated in the court system. Something else that helped this that was said in the article is that the world with racism today is better than it was five years ago, and it is to say that Obama was the one who we need to thank for that. When Obama was in office, it seemed like there were no problems at all and everyone was getting along really well. The thing that Martin Luther King Jr. said about the I had a Dream statement is that one day we would all get along and that didn 't happen at all. The new thing that has to be working out on is that we need to get along. If we get along, everyone will be fine, and the world will be fine.
From history of hundreds of decades, we have witnessed the great progress made by human, in technology and in society. But injustice always exists everywhere in this world. Injustice and unfair treatment could not be erased from the world easily. Just like the situation described by John Steinbeck, the immigrants faced injustice. But there are too many injustices that even worse in the world. In general, there are 5 main injustices in our world.
Mass media has played and will continue to play a crucial role in the way white Americans perceive African-Americans. As a result of the overwhelming media focus on crime, drug use, gang violence and other forms of anti-social behavior among African-Americans, the media has fostered a distorted and pernicious public perception of African-Americans (Balkaran). In this paper I will look at some concerns about how African-American and people of color are portrayed and stereotyped in the media according to Balkaran and Orelus. Also, this paper will draw attention to the impact social media has reshaped religion and how we worship. I will conclude with a few trends that are reshaping religion according to Elizabeth Drescher.
According to the 2011 ACS, (Automated Collection System), the median household income of Dane County’s African American families was $20,664, less than 1/3 the median income enjoyed by White families ($63,673). These statistics showed the problem of income disparity between black and white families. This income disparity might have negative impact in all domain of the black population life such as education, healthcare, etc.….
Police brutality is not a new problem in the United States. It has occurred throughout history and has affected all genders, ethnicities, and races. Recently, however, police brutality towards African Americans has become a controversial topic in the news media, and has prompted heated discussions and angry public outcry about race relations and civil rights throughout all sections of the country. Ever since the Michael Brown shooting in 2014, which was caught on camera and viewed widely on national television and on social media, the police have been under scrutiny by both the news media and the general population to stop their use of physical force and unnecessary violence when apprehending and confronting criminals.
As police brutality against African Americans is increasing, it is very much reminding us of the civil rights movement. Black leaders risked their lives to ensure that all African Americans would live an equal life as white Americans. The racism and discrimination had been unapparent until recent events such as Donald Trump’s campaign being successful and the police brutality against African Americans. “Every 7 hours cops kill an American citizen”. Many times African Americans are targeted. In fact, Police killed 160 black people in 2016. Did black lives activists die for such a world, destroyed by discrimination and inequality?
Racism is a problem in our society, there has been shootings, protesting and disrespect for our country’s past, present and future.Black lives matter! Racism is no good and bad for our country.
The racial inequality that we have in modern day blossomed from the historic oppression and comprehensive prejudice of minority groups. From the very beginning of “American” history, other groups of people who were not of European decent were discriminated against and treated inhumanely and without the smallest regard for their lives. Native American populations were decimated by diseases brought oversea by Europeans and forced from their ancestral lands by settlers to make room for their expanding populations. African people were enslaved by the millions and were used as tools of labor, and weren’t even regarded as humans,