a beautiful rainbow
A Beautiful Rainbow
Race is a modern idea that was developed 500 years ago during the slave trade. Europeans believed that enslavement is terrible. Why should anyone be enslaved? They believed that Africans were not true humans and were a lesser human; therefore, Africans can be enslaved. This is how race was developed. Racism is the belief that one race is superior to other races. Racism leads to discrimination because an inferior race should not receive equal rights as the superior race; however, in today’s society, racism and discrimination has been abolished in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Martin Luther King Jr. (Nelson and Sydell). Many people believed that the lower class minorities are poor because they did not go to school, and they did not work hard enough; so that is why they are poor. In America, many people believe that everyone has equal opportunities. Is that really true? Does minority really have the same opportunities as the white majority? Minority groups do not have the same opportunity as the white Americans because of the discrimination that is still practiced today even though people deny or do not know it.
Many people believe that racism no longer exist; however, an experiment in 2003 by Devah Pager, a sociologist, sent out two white and black males as “testers” to look for jobs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each tester had a diploma and was around 23 years old with no job experiences. One white and black testers had a criminal record for possession of cocaine while the other white and black testers did not. The study showed that the white applicant with a criminal record has more returning calls than a black man with no criminal record. Being white has more of a privilege when it comes to jail time and race; it seems that race was more important to employers than criminal actions. Pager stated, “I expected there to be an effect of race, but I did not expect it to swamp the results as it did” (Schaffer 85).
Race is a modern idea that was developed 500 years ago during the slave trade. Europeans believed that enslavement is terrible. Why should anyone be enslaved? They believed that Africans were not true humans and were a lesser human; therefore, Africans can be enslaved. This is how race was developed. Racism is the belief that one race is superior to other races. Racism leads to discrimination because an inferior race should not receive equal rights as the superior race; however, in today’s society, racism and discrimination has been abolished in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s by Martin Luther King Jr. (Nelson and Sydell). Many people believed that the lower class minorities are poor because they did not go to school, and they did not work hard enough; so that is why they are poor. In America, many people believe that everyone has equal opportunities. Is that really true? Does minority really have the same opportunities as the white majority? Minority groups do not have the same opportunity as the white Americans because of the discrimination that is still practiced today even though people deny or do not know it.
Many people believe that racism no longer exist; however, an experiment in 2003 by Devah Pager, a sociologist, sent out two white and black males as “testers” to look for jobs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Each tester had a diploma and was around 23 years old with no job experiences. One white and black testers had a criminal record for possession of cocaine while the other white and black testers did not. The study showed that the white applicant with a criminal record has more returning calls than a black man with no criminal record. Being white has more of a privilege when it comes to jail time and race; it seems that race was more important to employers than criminal actions. Pager stated, “I expected there to be an effect of race, but I did not expect it to swamp the results as it did” (Schaffer 85).