There are over 35 million African Americans in the US now, which is more than 12% of the population. As it is known from history this percentage was not the same over the years but very varied. According to the 1790 census, there were 750 thousand African Americans in the US, and it was more than 19% of the population. The percentage of African Americans in society did not change much until 1840s and then began to fall significanlty. Before the Civil War, there were 4 440 000 African Americans, or about 14% of the population. After the Civil War the percentage of African Americans in the community fell for almost a hundred years. In 50 years it fell to less than 10%. Then began a small relative growth in our time, as we have said, African Americans in the United States now constitute more than 12%. At the same time, in 1870s the number of enclaved African Americans increased by almost six times: from 750 to 4440 thousand. For 70 years after the Civil War, the number increased slightly more than two and a half times. This may seem paradoxical, but it is actually simple. Increasing the number of African Americans during slavery went mostly not due to natural increase, and due to the importation of new slaves. After the Civil War, the US was still divided because of the population changes, historical background of each of the states, racial differences, the distribution of white and black population and remains divided by race, place, gender and class.
Historical Reasons for the Racial Division
The period in the history of the United States of the separate (segregated) inhabited by three races (black and white) occupies a big part of the history - the entire first half of the XIX and XX century (Twain and Warner, 1996). Legal separation of the two races of the base times have changed, but the overall situation remained similar. Segregation continued in parts of the army, which at the time of large-scale military campaigns, the US experienced during this time, fell, of course.
Home importation of slaves into the territory of the modern United States coincided with the entry of England in the era of colonial conquest. The first permanent settlement of English colonists in America, Jamestown - was founded in 1607. 12 years later, in 1619 to the shores of North America, the first ship landed, who brought African Americans.
Import of African Americans and the introduction of slavery were the result of demand for labor in the south of North America, where people arranged large farms of tobacco, rice and other plantations. In the North, where the plantation economy, in view of the special economic and climatic conditions, was less common, slavery was never been applied on such a scale as in the South (Larson). Nevertheless, slaves were also present in the northern states. These were mostly domestic workers, agricultural laborers, and so on.
The first African Americans were brought to America as indentured workers, but very soon the contracting system was replaced by a better system of slavery. In 1641 in Massachusetts, the life of the slaves had been turned into a lifetime, and the law of 1661 in Virginia made hereditary bondage mother for children. Similar laws that perpetuate slavery were introduced in Maryland (1663), New York (1665), in the South (1682) and North Carolina (1715), and so on. In such a way, African Americans have become slaves.
Black slaves imported to America were mostly residents of the western coast of Africa. Amuch smaller part belonged to the tribes of Central and Southern Africa as well as North Africa and the Island of Madagascar.
Race Situation on North and South
Actually, two different social and political systems were developed in the United States. The North was able to create the fourth economy in the world. There was a huge amount at the time of the industrial enterprises, who built railways, produced machines, steamers. All the laws were designed to help businesses, including small and medium. It created North America the way it began. It was the North, and the colonization of the white farmers of the West that created an idea of America as a country of incredible opportunity for the common man. It was attractive to the masses of Europeans: the workers, inventors, entrepreneurs. Capital was creating together with a seething economic life, which allowed the introduction of new inventions and development of the industry (Larson).
What about the South? The South was the typical "raw superpower" (Roediger). One of the flagships of the industrial revolution was the textile industry, which demanded huge amounts of cotton. During the Civil War, it played a cruel joke with them. If the planter wanted to get more money, he bought more slaves occupied more land and raised more cotton. They do not engage in the industry. What for? After all, everything can be bought abroad.
Naturally, the two parts of the United States were at conflict. The North sought to develop its own industry and demanded that the law allows it to develop. The South, on the contrary, just needed the freedom of cotton trade and free access of goods from abroad.
White and Black Races Distribution
The main beneficiaries belonged to the family plantation. There were about 2 million of the owners of slaves and their families from 9 million population of the South, if assume that each family had at least one slave. Approximately 8,000 families had more than 50 slaves. They owned about 75% of all slaves.
What did the rest of white people do, who did not have slaves? Once in the South farming was developed, but by the time of the Civil War, it mainly lost competition with slave plantations and remains relatively small. A white person had a chance to get on the plantation overseers and so some engaged in it. However, number of spaces was limited to less than 20 thousand places (Roediger). Industrial enterprises were very small. These white people artisans experienced serious competition from African Americans. Some slave owners managed to keep their slaves by two cents a day. It was an extreme. African Americans are usually more expensive, for example, factories in Mississippi kept African Americans for 12 cents a day, but White people worked for 30 cents. In such a way, White people stay out of work (Twain and Warner). Besides this in cases where workers were trying to get higher wages and better working conditions, they may well have pointedly oust and replaced by African Americans slaves. For example, the Ministry of Marine, without a shadow of doubt on the construction of a dock in Norfolk replaced the white workers with slave workers, when it turned out that it is cheaper. White people wrote a complaint, tried to protested, but no one cared (Twain and Warner).
In the North, where industry was already developed, the middle class formed, and the workers, who received a relatively decent salary, created the necessary demand for various goods and services (Roediger). Therefore, an enterprising person could try to create some kind of business, rightly expecting that he would find a considerable amount of solvent buyers. Nevertheless, in the South it was practically impossible. How was it possible to create a small business there? Planter, most billing customer orders goods in Paris, for the services enjoyed by slaves. African Americans and slaves did not have money and did not create demand. A relatively small amount of white middle class made it impossible to provide business as in the North (Larson). That let white Southerners, who did not have the advantages of slavery, to go to the North. for good luck and happiness.
It is necessary to pay attention to some features of this economy. As the variety of work put slaves, the people formed the belief of many types of work as something unworthy for the white man, to be "a gentleman". Contempt for labor was produced in such a way. Such a man would rather go to any meanness and crime than to stoop to "unworthy" work.
However, morality is not only suffering from it. Racial mixing in the South was quite noticeable. By 1860s, about 10% of the slaves were actually mulattoes, descendants of whites and African Americans. There is nothing surprising. Slave owners have always used their slaves for sexual pleasures. Some of their children were released into the wild, but there were many who, without a twinge of conscience were held in slavery, and even sold their own children. Some authors argue that there were even specially bred for sale concubines, which were obtained from numerous crossings of Negroes and whites. With the right approach, they were quite white on anthropological grounds, but had a sufficient percentage of Negro blood to be legally held in bondage.
Sexism
Sexism is an ideology and practice of discrimination against people based on gender, related to the presence of belief in the superiority of one sex over the other in the various spheres of life, as well as prejudice against members of a particular sex. Sexism is an ideology based on the stereotypical models of gender roles gender binary society. It puts the roles, abilities, interests, and behaviors of people depending on their gender. A man who professes or practices sexism, is called sexist.
Sexism is manifested in different social levels and in different social spheres. Historically, women have been, and in some countries, remain more disadvantaged in the civil rights than men - for example, the disenfranchised. Almost all over the world women are disproportionately represented in the government. For example, US women more than men, but Congress 109th women were only 82 people, in particular women-senators - 14 people (14% of the total), and the members of the House of Representatives, women accounted for 68 people (15.6 %).
Prominent among the manifestations of sexism takes labor discrimination against women. It can be expressed in the vertical segregation (the so-called "glass ceiling" that women constitute an obstacle to career advancement), horizontal segregation (formal or informal denial of access to certain highly paid occupations and professional sphere), the lower women's wages compared to men. Sexism in the media, in particular in advertising, is associated with the sexual objectification of women.
Social Stratification
US Social classes are groups of people in the United States with similar social status, level of material well-being, education and other indicators. Although the division of social classes is rather conditional, however, in reality, no one doubts the bundle of the US population on various class categories.
The United States ranked third in the world in terms of population (over 310 million people). It is one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural countries in the world. The US population was formed mainly due to large-scale immigration from many countries and so people of all races, nationalities and religions now reside there. In the US, there is the state language, but in fact the most common and generally accepted in the United States language is English.
Of course, in the US, as in other countries, the population is divided into different social classes, which have different levels of education and income. There are a number of US society dividing models into classes. The simplest example of them is the division of people into "upper class", "middle class" and "lower class". The reality of course is much more difficult.
The upper-upper class
It includes "the aristocracy by blood", which 200 years ago emigrated to America and for many generations have accumulated enormous wealth. They are distinguished by a special way of life, high-society manners, impeccable taste and behavior.
Lower-upper class
Consists mainly of the "new rich", has not yet had time to create powerful tribal clans seized senior positions in the industry, business, politics. Typical representatives are the professional basketball player or a pop star, receiving tens of millions, but in the family who do not have "blood aristocracy."
Upper-middle class
It consists of the petty bourgeoisie and the paid professionals: lawyers, well-known doctors, actors and TV commentators. Their way of life is close to the grand, but afford the luxury villas on the most expensive resorts in the world and a rare collection of artistic curiosities, they still cannot.
Middle-middle class
It represents the most massive stratum of advanced industrial society. It includes all the well-paid civil servants, middle-professionals, in a word, human intellectual professions, including teachers, and middle managers. It is the backbone of the Information Society and the service sector. Speaking of the average-middle class, it should be noted that they are the guarantor of the economic, political and social stability in the society, the basis of support for the current government.
The lower-middle class
This class includes lower employees and skilled workers, who by the nature and content of their work tend rather than to the physical and to mental work. A distinctive feature is becoming a way of life.
The upper-lower class - working class
The working class in industrialized societies traditionally includes wage laborers engaged in physical labor in the mining and manufacturing sectors, as well as those who perform low-paid, low-skilled, are not unionized work in the service industry and retail trade.
Conclusion
In a sum it can be seen that population changes, historical background of each of the states, racial differences and the distribution of white and black population of the US provided big difference between places, states, races. That is why these divisions stay true even nowadays. The division between black and white has not disappear, only transformed. Black middle class been numerous and still growing. Today, more than half of African Americans have twice less income than poverty level. This is one of the common signs of the middle class. However, among the black population levels of poverty are still high at the same time.
Works Cited
Twain, Mark, and Charles Dudley Warner. The Gilded Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Print.
Roediger, David R. The Wages Of Whiteness. London: Verso, 1991. Print.
Larson, Erik. The Devil In The White City. New York: Crown Publishers, 2003. Print.
