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Running Head: RACISM POLICY DRAFT
Racism Policy Draft
Salina Wilson
Institution of Affiliation
11/28/2018
RACISM POLICY DRAFT
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Introduction
Racism is amongst one of the contemporary controversial social issues that has persistently
manifested between whites and people of color. Racism has been ranked amongst the leading
social problems in the United States. According to NBC news, 64% of Americans viewed racism
as a serious social problem that needed to be mitigated ("NBC TV Network - Shows, Episodes,
Schedule," 2018). The recent arrest of two Black people sitting at a Starbucks located in
Philadelphia has resulted in an increase in awareness of the social disparities in the United States.
Black people are continuously oppressed by biased laws and social injustices that are increasingly
making racism to be a huge social problem in the United States (Wayne, 2014). Their high arrest
rate is a reminder of the prevalent manifestation of black codes in subtle forms. In this paper, a
history of racism is presented along with the pertinence of the widespread impacts from the past
as well as in the contemporary setting. This paper also explores the policy trail that racism has left
in the United States in the limelight of a current promising policy act that might be feasible in both
the social, economic, and political arena.
Origin of racism
Racism traces back to the 16th and 17th century when Europeans sought to complete their
quest of exercising and attaining military power and wealth in other territories (Bowser, 2017),
respectively. Europe is known for its earliest forms of civilization and innovation thus making it
possible to design the required technology to sail to distant seas and explore unknown continents.
By then North America was referred to as the New World by some early explorers including the
likes of Christopher Columbus (Bowser, 2017). America was inhabited by natives of Asian origin
thousands of years ago, and these groups moved further to the south such that those who lived on
the north became skilled hunters and fishermen while the other groups adapted to growing corn as
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a result of hot climate. The arrival of the Europeans elicited different reactions from various native
clans. Some clans collaborated with the Europeans while other clans built resistance and hid farther
in the mountains. By then Europe was overtly exercising mercantilism, a policy which focused
national efforts toward amassing significant military presence and economic might.
Having explored their land to the optimum capacity, European Kingdoms sought to distant
lands for more resources such as minerals and crops which to the awakening of the natives led to
colonies as the European nations partitioned new lands to be ruled under their leadership. The
natives were no longer free in their lands, and the situation accelerated when Europeans set foot in
Africa and found abundant population which could be exploited for labor in their colonies. The
scramble for partition in Africa led to more colonization as European settlers grabbed fertile lands
and established governance in Africa territories. Africans were forced to labor in their native lands
as well as become slaves to work in other European colonies. America was vast and needed more
labor to maintain immense cotton and crop plantations. Slave trade then gained popularity in the
16th century as Africans were sold for labor in European colonies (Bowser, 2017).
The accounts presented above candidly depict how racism spontaneously started when
Europeans whom in this case are also referred to as whites considered their race as supreme over
all other people of color. Typically racism was all about color, and the whites considered people
from the Africa origin as uncivilized and racially inferior and thus discriminated them from all
whites’ privileges both in African and in America (Bowser, 2017). However, the early 19th century
saw a different view of slave trade amongst the whites and people of color as organizations started
advocating for the freedom of blacks. Advocacy groups demanded the return of lacks to their
African origin so that they could experience equity and greater freedom and these attempts
declared salve trade as illegal. However, the slave trade continued to flourish in moderately overt
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forms until the late 1860’s due to its significant economic gains (Gilligan, 2017). Even though the
slave trade ended, the racial discrimination and social disparity between whites and people of color
persisted for as long as it can be traced today.
The most extreme cases of racism was directed towards the blacks, and up to date, racism
manifests in hidden black code execution of the law that can be questioned in the limelight of a
series of events that signify that something is still wrong. The case presented in the introductory
section is just one amongst many where law enforcers respond with exaggerated means to
apprehend suspects when they are people of color and especially blacks. The Civil rights
movement led to many national and state reforms regarding the rights of blacks which have been
a success up to the contemporary setting but one their exists different forms of oppression towards
people of color (Gilligan, 2017) . In the contemporary setting, extreme racism acts have reduced
significantly, and it would be difficult today to find cases where blacks get lynched as it used to
be in the past. However, racism has evolved and manifested in other forms which do not imply
direct oppression but rather through public systems such as schools, health centers, and social
setting.
History of Racism
Racism began in the perception of people of color as objects of trade in the early 16th
century during the boom of the slave trade. It is imperative to mention that slaves were primarily
composed of people of color from Africa and thus constituted the largest percentage of the global
slave trade in the past. As an object of trade, African slaves had no rights whatsoever, and they
were overtly mistreated before their peers and their white colonist. They were rationed on food
and water as they were transported from Africa to America. All their basic amenities were provided
at the poorest levels, and they suffered greatly given the sudden change of environment and poor
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living conditions. Diseases often came in pandemics swiping a significant number of slaves during
the 16th 17th and early 18th centuries. It should be noted that the current social health disparity can
be traced all the way to the era of slave trade and it has been reported that in some horrible
incidences, that slaves were thrown overboard if they got ill to prevent them from spreading their
disease to the other slaves.
Anthropology studies have shown that slaves were treated by sharing needles and other
medicine instruments which intensified the rate at which diseases spread amongst the blacks
(Hinton, 2015). After the First World War and the commencing of the Civil Rights Movement,
America was in a state of political and economic instability, and thus it was increasingly difficult
to contain widespread chaos due to riots from the blacks and other concerned advocacy groups
which included whites who opposed the oppression on African Americans (Hinton, 2015). Thus
the Civil Rights Movement greatly influenced the development of racism in its contemporary form.
Overt forms of racism were significantly mitigated, and the white supremacists sought to oppress
blacks through segregation and discriminatory laws which limited the privileges of people of color
even though they were recognized as a citizen of the United States of America.
The development of new policies which empowered the blacks to become part and parcel
of the United States citizens angered a lot of white supremacists who could not tolerate the idea
that their once inferior subordinates could be considered as their peers. This led to more attempts
to try to show the people of color where they belonged in society. Racism persisted right under the
noses of the reformers and other authority figures who had advocated for the freedom of the people
of color. As stated earlier this team greatly impacted the blacks compared to other people color.
By the early 19th century, racism had reduced significantly at the federal level since the politics
which revolved around racism during these days implied that presidential elects sought to remain
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neutral without siding with the blacks and neither supporting the white supremacists in the attempts
to oppress the blacks (Asante, Sekimoto, & Brown, 2016). During these days there were notable
changes in the perceptions of racism amongst both white and the blacks.
While some of the whites felt that the people of the color had no rights at all in the united
states of America, another group or and in this case the minority group of whites which fought
against racism felt that too much oppression was demeaning the quality of life to the blacks. On
the other hand, blacks continued to try exercising the freedom in all social points of contact with
the whites which lead to further provocation as the whites started to express racism against blacks
once more overtly. It is imperative to note that during these times blacks were not well represented
in both state and federal governments and thus were not mainly involved in the process of making
legislative policies.
The severity of the problem
According to recent BBC news, racism in the United States is more prevalent as compared
to Europe. America is believed to have systematic racism which can be traced to slavery and the
various slave codes that have influenced the federal government’s laws that have been codified in
inhuman practices (Asante, Sekimoto, & Brown, 2016). United States government has increased
the problem by employing black codes and masquerading oppression against black people. Given
the awareness raised by blacks and concerned white citizens through advocacy groups, different
means were used to oppress the blacks. After the declaration of backs as free kind in the American
society, the white supremacists could no longer force the people of color to work for them.
However, it became clear that there were different jobs which were meant for the two distinct
groups (Bowser, 2017). The whites could secure high paying jobs, and this class of jobs was
codenamed the white-collar jobs. In essence, to avoid being overtly discriminative in the job sector,
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the other class of job category was codenamed blue-collar jobs. Since the dawn of industrialization
in the United States of America, the white citizens were privileged to secure safer and lucrative
jobs with benefits and better terms than their counterparts. Job discrimination became a persistent
concern up to the present work setting, and the numbers can tell it all.
Current statistics show that more than 50% of the unemployed population constitutes of
blacks and this is a significant number compared to less than 23% of unemployed whites (Lewis,
2018). This can be attributed to the fact that blacks are being discriminated in job setting as the
white employees are being preferred and thus are most likely to be employed than people of color.
On the same note social disparity that signifies racism has been expressed in policies which have
been used to operate the people of color. So far, there exists a very large gap in education as a
result of segregation in those districts which are primarily occupied by whites and thus limiting
the transfer of black children from their districts into these privileged schools. Resource allocation
in these districts is biased to those districts which are occupied primarily by whites. This implies
that while white students enjoy the privileges of studying in conducive classrooms equipped with
all the necessary materials their counterparts struggle to utilize scarce resources.
Among the most severe forms of racism, is their manifestation of hatred which would be
propagated through judicial proceedings to see to it the death of some black offenders or suspects
whose court rulings can be said to have been irrational. In the earliest periods of racism, lynching
was used to execute those who were ruled as guilty of a certain offense. However, lynching was
not mentioned or reported to have been used as a punishment for a white offender. This implies
that court proceedings were biased and in most cases, the jury of all white Judges often ruled
harshly against black offenders. The saddening case of George Stoney who was executed by
electrocution at the age 14 is a typical example of irrational judicial ruling against charges claiming
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that the boy had killed two white girls. The all-white jury went ahead to rule against George
spinney and sentenced him to death at the age of fourteen years. The court did not object and ask
for adequate time to investigate whether George spinney had committed the act (Smith, 2014).
Racism continued to persist in economic sectors through the denial of loans to the people
of color in the agricultural sector. Incompetent reasons were being given to the blacks to convince
them that they were not eligible to apply for loans while their white counterparts easily walked
away with more than enough cash to sponsor the agricultural project. In this context, denial of
services to the blacks is a form of soft racism which may not be overtly expressed in the eyes of
the larger society but persist even at the lowest levels of financial support from the federal and
state governments. On the same note, historical periodicals indicated that blacks could not access
certain services from the banks thus limiting them from assessing loans. Even though racism was
no longer expressed through forced labor and slavery, it continued to manifest in institutions and
public systems which excluded blacks from normal privileges which were supposed to be
leveraged by every citizen.
Policy trail
Due to increased prejudice and mistreatment of people of color and especially the blacks,
many whites and black leaders formed the civil rights movement to mitigate any forms of
receiving. The civil rights movement will always be remembered as a transformation organization
that led to the freedom of black people in the United States of America. The movement
commanded attention and threatened to riot and March to the president's office in the quest to
demand equal rights with the whites. In the year 1968, the first results of the civil rights movement
came into reality as the federal government enacted the 14th amendment which gives the black
people equal protection under the constitution of the United States of America (Clark & Zakita,
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2016). Initially, black people had no protection under the constitution and thus were prone to
prejudice and violent acts from the whites without any legal action taken against their oppressors.
This meant that whenever a quarrel arose, a white citizen in the United States of America could do
whatever s/he pleased to a black person without worrying about facing the consequence the law.
The civil rights movement continued to press for more rights and freedoms of the black
people, and their efforts were responded by the federal government’s enactment of the fifteenth
amendment which granted the black people the right to vote. As usual, the Fifth Amendment
elicited a lot of anger and opposition from the whites who had been used to see the black people
surfer in the face of the law. A significant number of whites opposed the Fifth Amendment
recalling that the same people who had worked forcefully in the plantations could not have equal
rights to vote and stay protected under the constitution of the United States of America (Clark &
Zakita, 2016). This bitterness led to the formulation of what can be termed as the Jim Crow laws
which opposed the manifestation of both the 5th and the 4th amendment. It should be noted that
the Jim Crow laws were enacted and executed at the state level and thus violating the constitution
of the United States of America at both state and federal levels.
South America was leading regarding enacting and executing the Jim Crow laws since
most of the whites in South America why more bitter than their northern counterparts. This is
because of most white citizens in South America owned plantations which was served by the
blacks in the era of slavery. It is important to mention that when the slave trade ended, white
citizens who inhabited South America encountered many challenges regarding labor. They were
the most bitter group amongst the whites because they had suffered an economic impact when
slave trade ended and therefore giving more equal rights to the blacks posed as a threat to any
future possibilities of employing black people in the plantations with an extremely minimum wage.
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Therefore, white people in South America enacted the Jim-crow laws to limit the rights and
freedoms of the black people in their states so that they could continue to manipulate black people
to work in the plantations (Bethell, 2014).
Increased pressure from the civil rights movement resulted in the ruling of the supreme
court of the United States of America to acknowledge that facilities for both white and black could
be equal but separate. This enactment and ruling by the Supreme Court were mistaken by the South
American whites who used the law to their advantage and continued to segregate blacks at the state
level often leading to discriminatory acts. Just before the World War II, the black people continued
to experience unemployment, and the pressure was amounting coupled with the efforts of the civil
rights movement to ensure equal employment opportunities at both state and federal level. Threats
to march to the white house led to President Roosevelt’s decision to declare all defense vacancy
positions and other national vacancies as open to all the citizens irrespective of their race, color,
and gender (Wayne, 2014). This was a turning point to the black people as more young people
were recruited in the military and fought in the World War 2 heroically. However, even in the
deployment of soldiers to the World War II field battles, black people faced segregation and
discrimination from the white soldiers.
Finally, in the year 1957, the civil rights act was enacted after the president signed it off
implying that anyone who prevented another person from voting or face the consequences of the
law. The act was a realization of the federal efforts to intervene and regulate the dubious methods
used by the south and states which remained persistent and resilient from withdrawing black
operation. However, the southern states continued too hard in the lives of blacks by requiring them
to pass a confusing voting test before gaining access to a ballot box. Therefore black people could
not vote with ease due to the set of ambiguous tests which prevented them from accessing ballot
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boxes and exercising their voting rights (Ellis & Van Kessel, 2013). In the year 1964, President
John f Kennedy signed the civil rights act which limited the use of these tests on the blacks. On
the same, not the federal government was commissioned to ensure that public facilities were
integrated to eliminate segregation.
Anti-Racism Act of 2017
In the contemporary setting, racism continues to persist in what can be called systematic
racism which might be difficult to observe since it is not expressed overtly like in the past.
Systematic racism refers to the existing policies and procedures which might seem to be neutral
and yet are disadvantages to those minority groups which are prone to racial discrimination. In this
context, racial discrimination takes place when policies or standard procedures limit the capacity
of radicalized minority groups to fully participate in the affairs of the state in both social, economic,
and political developments. The above-stated act was enacted in the year 2017 to ensure that
everyone is treated with respect, equity, fairness, and dignity. The Act was implemented at the
state level with the aim of enriching the Anti-Racism Directorate Law to help reduce disparities
for the Black people in America. The policy has been a success since more people have become
aware of the disparities between the White and Black people in the society and the need for change
both at the local and national level.
It is imperative to note that systematic racism impedes growth and development since the
minority groups are left without proper health facilities, education, and equal job opportunities.
Demographic studies show that by the year 2050 more than 50% will comprise of minority groups
(Friedlander, 2017). This implies that failure to rectify the existing policies and procedures can
have detrimental effects in the future generations as a result of less empowered minority groups
which are growing at a faster rate compared to the whites (Wayne, 2014).
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Subtle forms of segregation in schools should be mitigated with immediate effect to
eliminate the possibilities of an incompetent nation at a global scale in the future. For education
implies that most of the students in minority groups all grow into adults who will struggle to find
well-paying jobs and pass in future the nation will experience a stunted income per capita which
in turn implies the collection of less revenue collection by the federal government. As one thing
points to the next, it means that the United States will become incompetent in the near future if
systematic racism is not mitigated and called to an end in the contemporary setting. The anti-racism
act is a game-changer which will ensure political stability are using fairness as an instrument to
foster relationships between different racial groups (Gilligan, 2017). Likewise, racial groups in
differences will be kept aside by promoting equity in both the public and private sector and
strengthening cohesion amongst citizens of the United States of America.
Conclusion
It is clear from the text presented above that modern racism is propagated through policies and
procedures which impede growth and development amongst different racial groups. So far, the
whites continue to benefit from state and federal policies which seem neutral but yet are
increasingly becoming disadvantages in limiting the capacity of radicalized minority groups to
fully participate in the affairs of the state in both social, economic, and political developments.
Therefore it is imperative to review and change the existing policies which harbor racially sensitive
procedures discriminating against the minority groups in the United States of America. Both
federal and state governments should come up with programs which assist in fostering
relationships between different racial groups while promoting cultural development and social,
economic, and political stability.
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RACISM POLICY DRAFT
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