Racial Discrimination Still Lives in the United States of America

Racism and discrimination are still alive and well within the United States, despite the misconception that many still hold that the current century is post-racism. African-Americans and other minorities still face discrimination and mistreatment in the areas of education, employment, housing opportunities, everyday treatment, and much more. From interviews with college students and people of working, middle class, and upper class about their views on racism, as well as many studies conducted on many different issues; including colleges and university activities, actual statistics on the treatment of white versus colored people in real estate and jobs, and such things as the rate of mortality for white versus black infants, which are significantly different, all bring to light the very real issue of racism that some still deny.

These sources also bring up much of the mistreatment that blacks and other groups must endure throughout their entire lives. This is not an acceptable reality.

Some people try to explain racial phenomena away by dismissing them as natural occurrences: society is the way it is because that’s just the way it fell into place, not because we put practices into place that made it more difficult for minorities to have the same life chances as whites.

Some even suggest that discrimination is no longer a central factor affecting minorities’ life chances. In 1776, there was a notion that Americans should be entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all”. This turned out to mean life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for white men, not all.

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And decades later, after looking at the evidence, this might still be the case. America has a history of rationalizing racially unfair situations. There’s a pattern of blaming the victim and denying minorities reparations for what whites have put their ancestors through, all because there’s a belief held by recent generations that we are all equal now, and to have “equal opportunity”, minorities shouldn’t get special treatment. In reality, the world is still very far from equal, and pretending that racism is nonexistent, like many Americans do, where they feel righteous by denying the existence of discrimination, is not going to solve the problem.

These are warped views of discrimination, and they are not the reality.

Racism in housing and employment, professional sports, the corporate and academic fields, and many more similar areas of the social and economic structure are also still present in our society. When looked at more closely, all of these areas have something in common. In every one, minorities, especially African-Americans, experience mistreatment, racism, and blatant discrimination because of their different sounding names, the color of their skin, and stereotyping. “In the corporate and academic worlds, whites are promoted in due course, sometimes… even when they do not fully meet the standard. Blacks must be twice as qualified to demonstrate that they are only as qualified as whites for the same promotion.” The main theme is that racism is very much alive and well, and it’s not going away unless our society, government, and we as a people make a conscious and unwavering effort to stop it. I believe that to fix this issue, minorities should be given reparations, within communities and the workplace, for the next few decades until there is a significant and notable change in the economic structure, mainly actual equality in the workplace, schools, and housing. Workplaces should also have actual regulations on not having more than fifty percent of employees in a workplace be white. Some may see this as unfair, but something must be done until equality is in sight, and it is barely light at the end of the tunnel at this point. Colleges and universities should also make a conscious effort to make more of their student body of color and non-white descent. Let’s make America what we claim to be: unbiased, and accepting of everyone. Let’s practice what we preach and give everyone an equal opportunity.