Racism in the United States Essay Example

A quote from a famous activist and poet Maya Angelou says, “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” This quote perfectly describes the racism that has and will occur in America in the past, the present, and the future. She mentions how prejudice confuses the past because most people alive today only know about slavery, oppression, and Jim Crow laws from what this country decides should be taught. Angelou also says how prejudice could keep communities of color from growing and prospering not only in the present day but in the future as well. Whether or not America is racist is currently debated but not solved. Although there have been several movements and laws set in place to try to prevent racism from happening, America still experiences racism today and it does not look like that will change. 

America has been a racist country from the very beginning. The first group to experience racism in this country were the Native Americans. A quote from the American Journal of Public Health says, “Virginia also was the first mainland English colony to enslave native American Indians, when the short phase of pacific coexistence with the Powhatans, symbolized by the conversion of Pocahontas to Anglicanism, evolved into an all-out war” (Morabia 1). This quote explains how the Native Americas were enslaved and segregated from the beginning of the United States being formed. The Indian Removal Act was a policy set in place by the United States government that forcefully removed Native Americans from their homelands to a segregated area in the country. A part of this act was the Trail of Tears, which was the path of about 1,200 miles these natives had to travel to reach their new destination, during their journey over 4,000 died from diseases, hunger, and hate/war crimes. To this day Native Americans still experience harassment and racism for their culture and skin color. Another group of individuals that highly experienced racism in the early stages of American history was African Americans. A quote from a University of Chicago Press journal says, “For the first 250 years of American history, white landowners, predominantly from the South, enslaved millions of individuals of African descent” (Acharya et al. 1). This quote talks about how African Americans were viewed as objects and were owned by white people for a large portion of American history. For over two centuries, African Americans were kidnapped, sold, and forced into slavery to work as servants and laborers. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1865 and is a racist white supremacist terrorist and hate group that mainly targets blacks. This group has been responsible for many African American deaths and racially motivated attacks. Jim Crow Laws were created in 1865 and they were state and local laws that allowed for racial segregation to happen. This meant every public place such as schools, restaurants, and bathrooms were separated for whites and blacks. These laws denied African Americans the right to vote in elections, have a job or career and kept them from receiving a good education. If a black tried to defy these laws, they were arrested, fined, and sometimes it resulted in violence or death.  Native and African Americans have been the center of racism since the beginning of this country’s establishment. 

Institutional racism has been a growing issue for people of color for decades. A quote from a journal in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health says, “Institutionalized racism is defined as the macrolevel systems, social forces, institutions, ideologies, and processes that interact with one another to generate and reinforce inequities among racial/ethnic groups” (Hardeman et al. 1). This quote is a good definition of what institutional racism is because it explains how the overall system in this country is biased and has unequal treatments. An example of institutional racism would be the ruling of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. This case allowed for “separate but equal” public facilities for whites and blacks. These facilities were not equal at all, which led to a huge difference in opportunities for African Americans. Another quote from an American Heart Association journal says, “Structural racism leads to differential access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society by race determines societal values and power hierarchies, and underlies persistent health disparities in the United States” (Churchwell et al. 1). This quote describes how this racism creates unequal living situations for African Americans. A few opportunity differences include the ability to obtain a higher paying job and higher education, there is less representation in the government, and incarceration rates and jail sentences are longer. Another issue brought up by this quote is the difference when it comes to health and health care. Examples of this include lack of pain management, a higher chance of dying from pregnancy or childbirth complications, worse health insurance, and a higher mortality rate during and post surgery. Institutional racism has been in place for centuries and is still in place to create more inequalities between different races. 

America is currently experiencing a great level of civil unrest. A quote from an article out of  The New York Times says, “In cities across the United States, tens of thousands of people have swarmed the streets to express their outrage and sorrow during the day. That has descended into nights of unrest, with reports of shootings, looting and vandalism in some cities'' (Taylor 1). This quote explains how the year 2020 set off a year full of racially motivated police brutality and protests. Several of the many black people killed by police brutality this year were George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. This brutality led to Black Lives Matter protests as well as other protests that demanded reform, police accountability, and social justice. While many protests were peaceful, there were some that led to confederate monuments being destroyed, cities placing curfews at night to keep violence levels down, and some looting, arson, and other destruction did happen. The National Guard was sent out to several cities to deescalate the situation, which turned out to be the complete opposite with tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets used against protesters even if they were peaceful. A quote from Bookings says, “Fast forwarding to a century later, the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the protests demonstrations attended by millions, as well as the insurrection of 2021, all mirror a place that we have seen before in this country. It seems that syndemics, or rather the aggregation of multiple epidemics (e.g., coronavirus, police brutality), followed by racial violence are the strands that makeup America’s DNA” (Roberts 1). This quote is explaining how 2020 was an example of history repeating itself as it was similar to the Red Summer of 1919. This historical event was white supremacy terrorism and racial riots that happened in nearly forty cities and killed hundreds of African Americans. This was also right after the Spanish flu killed fifty million people, which is similar to the COVID-19 outbreak that started in 2020. Overall, these most recent years have shown how there is still a great level of civil unrest that revolves around the inequality of African Americans. 

However, some Americans believe this country is past the point of being racist. A quote from the article titled “America Isn’t a Racist Country” says, “When certain Americans were denied the right to vote based on the color of their skin, that was systemic racism. When small children and college students had to be ushered to school by the National Guard, past defenders of state laws and policies that sought to maintain racial segregation, that was systemic racism. When black and white Americans were forbidden to marry, that was systemic racism—and a gross infringement on individual liberty” (Connerly 1). This quote does offer a good point that America does not ‘legally’ allow systemic racism or segregation, but it does happen frequently in many areas of life. Most cities in this country are still divided with a mostly black neighborhood as well as a mostly white neighborhood. This also creates divides in schools which hinders the ability of African Americans to receive a good education and to receive post-secondary education. African Americans also have a higher rate of unemployment or if they are employed they could be making less than whites. Lack of employment also leads to more homelessness, more renting homes instead of owning, worse healthcare, higher mortality rates, and even higher incarceration rates. The second part of this quote is Connerly explaining how the legalization of interracial marriage means this country is not racist, while the truth is interracial marriage has only been legal for about fifty-five years. Also, these marriages are still looked down upon, which shows there is still racism in this country. Another quote from this article says, “Our history is the best proof that America is not a racist nation. A nation of white racists wouldn’t elect and re-elect a black man as president” (Connerly 1). This quote mentions the biggest argument people have when saying this country is not racist–a black president was elected, then re-elected. In reality, Barack Obama has been the only black president, out of forty-six presidents. Connerly did mention a few good opposing opinions on how he believes America is not racist, but his arguments were not the strongest or best supported.