Question One
Race is more deliberate than prejudice. According to the articles, the definition of racism is discrimination against someone due to first and foremost their race, differences in skin color, and/ or where they are from. According to the book, Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations, the author articulates that most of the founding fathers of the United States had slaves. They therefore knew the toll that slavery had on the slaves and the hardships that the slaves underwent, even so, the still went ahead and knowingly regarded a slave as there fifths of a human in the constitution.
Prejudice can be defined as a negative attitude towards an individual because they belong to a certain social group or in this case race. According to the book Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations, the author points out that it is a norm for a typical American Caucasian family to agree to a union between a low educated white laborer than a well learned professional from the black community (Joe, 2000). This is because it was a common misconception that the black or colored people living in the United States are inferior to the white people. This is prejudice. It is not deliberate; this rejection against people of the other ethnic background is almost inborn and was fostered from the very beginning of America as an independent country.
Racism and prejudice is still functional today’s society. An example of racism today is in the education sector. Students of color in the United States are not afforded equal opportunities in schools especially if they have poor financial backgrounds. Prejudice in society today is seen in the cases of police brutality against people of color (Joe, 2000). The negative attitude and unprecedented hostility against suspects of color without supporting evidence is a form of prejudice in the society today.
Question Two
It is a widely accepted view that the race of an individual is biologically given. As a result, the American social structure has used this as a basis to divide itself into racial categories. Science has played a major role in the naturalization of social classification by race lines. The naturalization of this social structure makes it seem normal and not prone to criticism. First, scientifically, different races exhibit different appearances. This means individuals in the society are more likely to segregate to the similarities in their physical appearances. Second, human genetics dictate that people from certain geographical locales differ in their phenotypic appearance. This means that people from different geographical areas are drawn together in a multicultural society.
Over time, this grouping due to race elicited a response in race elicited a response from white supremacists. Some of them made literary works such as White Man’s Burden. This is a poem by Rudyard Kipling explaining the need for the Europeans to colonies other races of color (Rudyard and James, 1899). Because of science naturalizing race-based segments in society, this poem was written as a justification of the Europeans colonial rule over other indigenous groups. Another result of science’s naturalization of a society’s structure based on race is the Manifest Destiny (Brian, 1989). This was a belief held by Americans in the 1800 that the settlers that occupied the United States needed to spread throughout the continent. Since the whites saw themselves superior, the Manifest Destiny was based upon the idea that it was the destiny of the settlers to transform the West into their way of thinking and life.
Finally, another ill consequence of science on race is Jim Crows Laws on Segregation. These laws were implemented to subject the entire black community to the white community (Leslie, 2012). These laws were based on the need to separate the blacks from the white, starting with marriage, to schools and to transportation systems among other facilities, the blacks, and the whites were not supposed to intermingle.
Question Three
According to the two articles, several factors have led to the differences they exhibit in their social and economic standings in the American society. For the black population, the factor that has been on the forefront in the current social standing socially and economically is the racial bias that they have undergone. The racial bias has condemned the blacks to lack of opportunities to improve themselves. Discrimination against blacks has hindered them to enter into good schools especially those that have poor financial status. In the American society, the blacks are not afforded equal employment opportunities and therefore their financial standing deteriorates in comparison to other majority groups in the society.
Another factor that has caused the current social and economic standing of the blacks in the American society is racial scapegoating (Khalil, 2010). This is where a black person is blamed for a crime that committed by a white person. This has stood in the way of their development since they are perceived as criminals and therefore lack the equal opportunities that are afforded to other people.
As for the Asian community, racial discrimination is a dominant factor that has contributed to the socioeconomic stand in the society. The people of Asian descent are discriminated against and therefore lack as many opportunities as the white counterparts.
Because of these differences, black folks are seen as perpetrators of criminal activities in the society. Asians are not suspected as much in comparison to their black counterparts but the Asian criminal gangs are still considered a force to reckon in the criminal justice system in the United States.
Works Cited
Feagin, Joe R.. Racist America: roots, current realities, and future reparations. New York: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Garfield, Brian. Manifest destiny. New York: Penzler Books, 1989. Print.
Kipling, Rudyard, and Thomas James Wise. The white man's burden. London: [s.n.], 1899. Print.
Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The condemnation of blackness race, crime, and the making of modern urban America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010. Print.
Tischauser, Leslie Vincent. Jim Crow laws. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood, 2012. Print.
