Essays on Blacks And Whites

The positive aspects of Booker T. Washington’s position on the assimilation of blacks into the free communities of the United States revolve around his recognition of the rigid color line that existed at the time. Even with a Civil War tarnishing the nation’s history, traditions remained unchanged and white supremacy was the epitome of American cultural norms. To that end, Washington’s argument that persons of African descent ought to “cast down [their] bucket where [they were]” is perhaps the best advice anybody could have given the ex-slaves (1895, par.4). After all, the abolition of slavery not ...

Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of the first influential poets in the movement that would become the Harlem Renaissance. Older than some of his peers within that group, he published his first poems in 1889, in the Dayton Herald, also serving as class president and class poet despite being the only black student in his grade level. He initially wanted to become an attorney, but his mother did not have enough money to send him off to university, so he started looking for work in his downtown, Dayton, Ohio, but found that there were few openings for black applicants. ...

The American Version of Apartheid

Like apartheid in South Africa, the segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as the Jim Crow laws affected every aspect of life of African Americans living in the American South from the 1890s until the 1960s when the Civil Rights Movement began reversing the system of laws that turned blacks into second-class citizens. The term Jim Crow is an insulting slang for a black man. “Jim Crow” originally referred to a character in an old song and was the name of a popular dance in the 1920s. Around 1928, Thomas Daddy Rice began dressing in old clothes, painted his face ...

There were a number of cases brought before the Supreme Court of the United States in relation to racial discrimination. In Brown vs. Board of Education, the Supreme Court in the United States declared that it was unconstitutional to continue practicing state laws which separated public schools for Black and White students. The decision ruled that such state laws were a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. On the contrary, Plessy vs. Ferguson the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the state laws that supported racial segregation, especially in public facilities. These laws became practical ...

Du Bois introduces three concepts that portray the prototypical Black experiences in the United States. These are illustrated through the Veil and double consciousness. Double consciousness and color line are concepts that were explored by Du Bois in 1903 (Bruce Jr. pp.299). His concept is slightly different from Thomas’ Paine and recurs throughout the article. His concept on double consciousness refers to living with double identities. One is the Negro identity together with all its troubles and second is the American identity compelled on the Negro after settling in the United States. It is color line that divides the ...

Touching upon the problem of improvement in race relations in the United States, we should say that it’s a rather controversial topic. Denying African Americans citizenship was deemed essential to the formation of the original union. Hundreds of years later, America is still not an egalitarian democracy. An extraordinary percentage of black men in the United States are legally barred from voting today, just as they have been throughout most of American history. They are also subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, public benefits, and jury service, just as their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents once were. ...

From a sociological perspective social movement has been conceived as collective actions organized by informal groups for a formal purpose. Usually, they consist of a large number of individuals with an identical social issue to be resolved. Characteristically, they can be distinguished from gangs since the group’s goal to legitimately pursue their cause in a dignified manner based on a principle or philosophy, as against gangs, which are organized for criminal activities. (Bantjes, 2007). Basically, a social movement has distinct features embodying a scope, innovative or conservative intervention; target; method and range. Its cycle encompasses creation, growth, achievement and dissolution. (Chesters, 2006). It must ...

Introduction

Discrimination and disparity play a very important role in today’s society. Their roles are even more pronounced in criminal justice system. The two terms are usually interchanged; however, they refer to different things though they share similarities. Disparity refers to the lack of equality between groups or individuals. It also refers to the absence of similarity between two or more groups or people. Discrimination is the differential or unequal treatment of a certain group of individuals based on factors like race, social status, religious beliefs, gender and others. Discrimination usually results in prejudice and segregation (Darrell, 2003).

Comparing and Contrasting Disparity and Discrimination

Disparity is constituted ...