Don’t be Racist: Observations of Racism within Southern California In the textbook Sociology A Down-to-Earth Approach, James M. Henslin repeats a phrase coined in 1903 by Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois ‘The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line—the relation of the darker to the lighter races.’ This is phrase that all American should take into deep consideration in regards to how humans treat one another because of the various skin colors there are in today’s society. In fact, most Americans are 99.9% similar to the people whom they believe to be the most different from, and the.1% difference that all humans have to one another is the most obvious to the naked eye, which is skin color, was said to my Sociology 1 class by Sociologist Frances Vu. Henslin states that the word race means the outer physical characteristics a group gains through its ancestors, which makes them different from other groups; he also defines racism as “ prejudice and discrimination on the basis of race” (314& 319). Therefore, racism has always been seen throughout American society, and can even be observed nowadays within Southern California. Racism is still present in America, and people with African and Hispanic appearances are usually discriminated against by American society because of their skin color. Henslin defines discrimination as “an act of unfair treatment directed against an individual or group” (319). In the essay Just Walk on by: Black Men and Public Space, by Brent Staples he writes on how he was individually discriminated against by other people in the magazine company he was working for. Individual discrimination is defined by Henslin as “person-to-person or face-to-face discrimination; the negative treatment of people by other individuals” (321). When Brent was a journalist for a magazine company he wrote for, the magazine company office manager confused him for a burglar. Therefore, the office manager called security on Staples, so then
