Race relations in America Social Sciences Essay Paper (Essay Sample)

Race Relations in America
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Racism has formed a significant portion of America's history and continues to create challenges for today's communities. According to Geneva, racism is a recent phenomenon, having been invented in the eighteenth century. He defines it as the discrimination of a person from a different race due to color, where the perpetrators anchor their rationale on the assumption that there are superior and inferior races. Definitions vary from one person to another. However, the most suitable definition, in this case, is by Geneva. Geneva refers to racism as any activity, individual, or institution, deliberate or not, predicated upon a belief in the superiority of whites and inferiority of ethnic minorities, which serve to maintain white supremacy through the oppression and subjugation of members of ethnic minority groups. This definition includes all the three types of racism; individual, institutional, and cultural racism that has been experienced and continue to adversely impact contemporary society. The white Americans considered themselves superior, while the black Americans and minority groups, like the Jews, Asians, and Arabs, made up the inferior race. As such, they created a racial divergence in three primary forms, including political, social, and economic racism. Tracing the occurrence of racism in the colonial period, legal, social, and economic privileges were granted to the white Americans and denied to the black Americans and other minority groups. The superior race enjoys rights like education, voting, immigration, citizenship, land acquisition, and property ownership. The inferior race, on the other hand, suffers from injustices and denial of essential services. In history, racism often resulted in slavery, genocides, and segregation of people from inferior races. In contemporary times, the black and Hispanic still continue to wallow in poverty due to blockades in their success journey. One of the most crucial problems encountered in American societies is racism because it permeates every aspect of American life.