Racism Hidden but It Does Exist
“Racial discrimination is an idea of inferiority, physical or intellectual, of a separately taken race or an ethnic group”. Racists are sure that there are only two types of people in the world – the highest, that is the nation to which the racist belongs, and all the others – the lowest, whose life purpose is to serve as slaves for the former.
In a modern society that is accepted to be called civilized, racism is one of the most condemned concepts. The person, who is stating racist views in public, risks face not only a strong moral condemnation but also some repressions up to criminal prosecution. Racism is a concept according to which “races are not equal among themselves which means they differ in terms of some essential issues which can be objectively estimated in categories “better – worse”.
Nowadays, racism in America does not as though exist, but really it does. Formally, all people are free, and it is not important what color of skin they have, they get all the rights described in the Constitution. As a confirmation, there is the fact that the present U.S. President is black (his father is from Kenya, and his mother is a white American). Nevertheless, it does not change the situation as many Americans hate different races in secret.
Racism has deep historic roots. For example, according to the Bible, “Blacks came from Kham, Noah’s son. Kham was damned by his father; therefore, automatically all blacks became “outcasts”, people of the second grade”.
The whole history of the USA is the history of racial discrimination. Aboriginals – Indians were the first who became its victims. Then there was a slaveholding society in a developed, as it was considered, society. Africans became victims. At the end, it caused the bloody Civil War. But the racial discrimination has not finished yet – blacks, or Afro-Americans, were not accepted on more or less significant positions, except servants, for a long time.
The reason is also in the ethnic conflict. And as for “the reasons of this conflict, there are two of them: sociological and psychological”.
The psychological reason is quite simple: blacks are others, and whites refuse to understand them. A sociological explanation can be subdivided into two: a conflict of cultures and a conflict of interests. The cultural conflict occurs when some norms appear accepted in one culture but unacceptable in another. And the conflict of interests is a fight for any resources: from labor to the territory. When people live in different territories, nothing awfully happens. They do not understand each other and that is all. But as soon as an ethnic mixture begins, the problems always arise.
Blacks, in turn, cannot forgive themselves for the past. They cannot forgive for the fact that they allowed to enthrall themselves, allowed to take out violently themselves from the country, to deprive themselves of their culture and language. They never will forgive this mistake to the white people.
According to the statistics published on January 11th, 2011, “the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) got record charges: the Agency recorded the highest quantity of discrimination accuses in 2011 since the foundation of the Agency in 1965. The number of accuses recorded by the EEOC in 2011 was 99,922, that is 7.1% more than it was fixed in 2010. There were 35,890 race discrimination accuses , which was 6.9% more than in 2010), sex discrimination accuses – 29,029, which was 3.9% more than in 2010), national discrimination charges – 11,304, which was 1.5% more than in 2010, religion discrimination charges – 3,790, which was 1.9% more than in 2010), and disability discrimination – 25,165, which was 17% more than in 2010)” (Berlack, & Moyenda 74). That means that the discrimination not only exists, it rises to record highs.
Barrack said that ethnic minorities – the Afro-Americans, Indians, Hispanic inhabitants of the USA as well as the Muslim American are exposed to the discrimination in different areas including electoral rights, civil rights, and education. It is noted in the document that “about 5,4 million citizens are debarred from voting. And the vast majority of them belong to ethnic minorities”.
The experts from “the law-enforcement organizations argue that immigrants and their children quite often face injustice of the authorities in relation to them. The representatives of the ethnic minorities, as it is noted in the document, are exposed to arrests and sentenced to imprisonment much more often than the white Americans”). The police more often stop the black Americans in the streets.
According to the results of the sociological research of the Gallup Group company, violations and crimes in the States are made generally by not the white Americans. “74 % of the criminals of the USA are the Afro-Americans and Latin Americans. We are not racists, we condemn nobody and we recognize that it is a simply statistical fact. We would like to add once again, we are not racists” – it is told in a careful sociological research conclusion of the sociologists.
However, a similar argument did not convince the representatives of the minority of America. “It is a real nonsense”, the head of the Union of fight for the rights of the Afro-Americans, Isaya Collins, said – “It turns out that we are the minority in all the rest but in crimes, we are the majority! It is discrimination, racism and is out of logics!”.
The statement conceived a huge resonance and the government of the USA had to withdraw the report data, and soon to give a talk with an official denial of its data. Besides, it is expected that statistics as a branch of knowledge will not be used on the territory of NorthAmerica any more.
However, there is also an opposite opinion that racism does not exist any longer. It disappeared and the black people consider themselves restrained and shout constantly about their infringement of the rights as they got used to that. If a black person was given a penalty on the road, he would tell that it happened because he/she was black. If the black was not given a discount for the spoiled goods in a shop, it happened because he/she was black. Blacks always consider themself to be victims offend in life. But “they do not try to change their standard of living at all. Some of them do not go to schools and colleges (which are free!). The black person is lazy by his/her nature. It is better to sit for the black on a porch and talk about a nasty life than to go to work”.
Do blacks speak about slavery? They exhaust themselves there without getting an education. They can become “slaves of the whites” soon again as you will not see whites but only blacks at a dirty, hard, cheep work. And who prevents them from obtaining a diploma? Nobody does, except themselves and their genes in blood.
We confirm that the situation concerning the racism in America has changed considerably. It is necessary to notice that employers try not to employ the Afro-Americans now as it is almost impossible to dismiss them. They will be charged of the racial discrimination even if he/she was an obvious idler and a parasite.
Blacks have their chanel, the chanel of entertainments for the blacks but if you name the channel for the whites, you will be called a racist at once. Now, in America, there is an opinion that it is necessary to protect whites from blacks as they will die out soon. The educated Americans of the white race do not have 5-7 children as blacks.
Now, it is possible to say about the USA that the discrimination of the white population exists there. How has it happened? The Afro-Americans have fought for the restrained rights for so long time that they have them now more than others. Now, any black for the sidelong glance at him/her can accuse the white of the racial discrimination.
Did you notice that practically in any American film there is a black protagonist? There can be two but one of them should be black, and he surely should be a hero. If he plays “a bad guy”, it is a racial discrimination, a hint on a criminalization of the whole race. “A bad white” is possible, “a bad black” – by no means. So, it is very hard for the Hollywood producers.
If you glance at the prisons of the USA, you will see only black colored – 90 % of the prisoners are Afro-Americans; Latinos are on the second place. In this case, why was the fight for the rights of the blacks and Latin Americans necessary?
In the USA, the authorities were overzealous in political correctness: in an attempt to avoid the discrimination of the Afro-Americans, they started to oppress whites. The conflict situation arose in the city of New Haven of the Connecticut State where the group of the white firefighters refused to be promot only because their black collegs could not pass a promotion examination. Without having found the best way out, the management simply cancelled successful results of the tests.
The indignant candidates, who have passed the tests, addressed the city appeal court, but it confirmed the rightness of the city authorities. However, the Supreme Court cancelled the decision of the local court and admitted the rightness of the whites. If the candidates passed tests successfully, the color of their skin means nothing. Such an opinion was supported by five members of the court against four expressed.
The situation was aggravated by the fact that Sonia Sotomayor – the candidate for the Supreme Court, who had been nominated by the president Barack Obama. Sonia Sotomayor was one of the judges, who had supported the discrimination decision of the authorities of New Haven. In general, this case overturned all the ideas of the discrimination and created new difficulties for employers.
The matter is that, if the management, according to the examination results, employed the fire team consisting only of whites, black candidates, could bring an action against them for the same discrimination. Now, it turns out that any decision would not help to avoid charges of the discrimination.
The reason for racism is not a skin color but human thinking. Therefore, the healing of racial prejudices, xenophobia, and intolerance should be search for in a disposal of false representations which have been a source of incorrect concepts about superiority or, on the contrary, a lower position of various groups in the mankind for so many millennia. The racist thinking penetrates our consciousness. All of us are a little bit racists.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims that “all people are born free and equal in their dignity and rights and that each person should possess all the rights and freedoms proclaimed, without any distinction, in particular, without the distinction on the basis of a race, a skin color or a national origin”.
All the people are equal before the law and have the right to the equal protection of the law against any discrimination and against any instigation to the discrimination.
“Any theory of the superiority based on the racial distinction is false in the scientific relation, in the moral – it is reprehensible, and in the social – it is unfair and dangerous” (Vernellia 14). There can be “a justification for racial discrimination, nowhere, neither in the theory nor in practice”.
The discrimination of people on the basis of the race, skin color or ethnic origin is an obstacle to the friendly and peaceful relations between the nations and can lead to a breach of the peace and safety among the people as well as a harmonious coexistence of people even in the same state. The existence of racial barriers contradicts ideals of any human society.
However, I insist that in the capitalist USA, the level of national and racial prejudices actually decrease thanks to the fight against them, which certain people, the society, and the state conduct. But, nevertheless, though the racial discrimination is hidden, it exists, and perhaps, will exist for many years as it has been hammered into our heads for a long period of time.
Certainly, the state should play the leading part in the solution of this problem. It should provide an equality of each person before the law without the distinction of the race, skin color, a national or ethnic origin. And the existence of racial discrimination depends first of all on us, our thoughts, and attitudes. Let us all together put an end to this problem once and for all.