

Racism Essay

1908 words - 8 pages

Kaplan University

SS270: Social Problems
May 4, 2013

Nigger, Cracker, Wetback, Chink, Aye-Rab, Dink, Gringo, Coon, Oreo, Jungle Bunny, Kraut, Hillbilly, Honky, Jap, Sand Nigger, Uncle Tom, White Trash, Yellow, Towel Head and Beano; these are just some of the many names that people are called on a daily basis to belittle a person from a different ethnic background. Racism is something that has been around forever and there have been many attempts to stop it without total success. Although many people don’t agree with racism today there are still too many people that roam this earth that think it is okay to call someone a slang name in an offensive ...view middle of the document...

The three percentage point rise is not large, and within the poll's margin of error. But, at the very least, it indicates we have not reached the post-racial world that some hoped Obama's election would usher in. And the prejudice isn't limited to blacks: 52% openly express anti-Hispanic sentiments” (¶5). Different areas of the country all express racisms towards different people. Although, you can find racism in all walks of life, it appears more relevant by the races that seems to encroach on the living of others races. For example, in Texas there are many people that feel strongly against people from Mexico. One of the common thoughts are that the Mexican men come to the states illegally, take the work from the working men in the states by underbidding because they are piled up 8-10 men in a three bedroom house. Often you will hear a wetback comment regarding the Mexican men. Racism although sometimes supported by reasoning instead of just blatantly hating another culture is cruel either way.

In the south where slavery was so prominent today many white people are still anti-black. This was expressed by the dragging in Jasper Texas in 1998. James Byrd, a 49 year old black man was drug by his ankles by a truck 3.5 miles and died when he was decapitated after hitting a culvert. The three men that drug Mr. Byrd were part of a white supremacist organization, two were sentenced to death, one which has already been completed and the third man faces life in prison. Mr. Byrd was the cousin a co-worker of mine. “In 2009, President Barack Obama signed into law expanded hate crime legislation that was named after Byrd and Mathew Shepard, a gay Wyoming man who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998” (CNN, 2011). The time of Martin Luther King and his speech “I have a dream” has long since passed and was before the ability to remember for most average aged Americans today. At the end of the “I have a dream” speech, Martin Luther King Jr. said “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty; we are free at last (PBS, 1996-2010, p.3)! Although MLK did make a difference with his speech and the stand his stood for the black American, today fifty years later we still have racism against all colors.

There are a few reasons why I am so invested in the resolve of racism in the United States but mostly because I see it firsthand every single day. As a white American woman with the name of Tenice Jones, I am often mistaken for a black woman. This has been very interesting for my learning on how different races interact with their own as well as others. In my career, I correspond with customers and...

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