Has America Entered a Post-Racial Era? (Essay Sample)

Post-Racial Era
Name
Institution
Post-Racial Era
• Where do you think America stands on the issues of race?
As people looked at the swearing in of the country’s first African-American president, the perception was that the U.S. was moving toward a post-racial society by becoming a more racially lenient country. Despite this post-racial society’s idea, racism and race carry on being alive in America and thus the country is not living in the post-racial era. As America gradually confronts the race issue, it is apparent that race still matters. As America got into the 21st-Century, silent but not overt segregation exists in the school systems, poverty, employment, healthcare, immigrant communities, prison systems, and other societies’ sectors. Across various measures, black to white’s social and economic well-being-gap continues. Blacks lag behind household wealth, median income and homeownership. The differences continue even when controlling education levels (Lum, 2009).
• Did Obama’s presidency make life easier for people of color? Why or why not?
Obama’s presidency made life easier for people of color. This is because, since the establishment of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) open enrollment phase at the end of the year 2013, the uninsured rate between non-elderly African American declined by over a half. Besides, over that period, approximately 3 million uninsured nonelderly adults (African-American) gained health coverage. Moreover, the high school rate of graduation for African-American students rose to its utmost point in history, for instance, in the academic year of 2013-2014, 72.5% of African-American students in public high schools graduated within four years. This is because, since Obama took office, over a million more black students joined college.
Subsequently, President Obama launched an initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, on February 27, 2014, which addressed persistent opportunity gaps which were faced by young men and boys of color. The initiative ensured that all the young people could reach their full potential. Besides, the Council on Women and Girls launched a stream termed as “Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color” which ensured that programs and policies across the federal government properly took into account the unique problems that girls and women of color faced
• How do popular culture representations from music, comedy, and TV programming complicate the issue?
Media, entertainment, as well as other popular representations from comedy, music, and TV programming contribute a crucial role in shaping people’s perceptions of other people. Popular culture is the main way that we learn about individuals. The problem is that various representations get based on the cultural stereotypes, which always tend to caricature and marginalize members of the nondominant groups. Thus, through these representations, people of different race see a distorted and limited view of others.
Music, comedy, and TV programming are powerful sources in perpetuating and creating negative cultural stereotypes, particularly about ethnic and racial groups. In film and television, characters from nondominant ethnic and racial groups always fall into formulaic tropes, while their storylines simply follow cliché narratives. These representations’ consistency reinforces stereotypes and also makes them more convenient in our minds, for instance, black boys and men ar