Racial Discrimination Among Different Races: How People Treat Others? (Essay Sample)

Name TA Name Sociology 122 May 15. 2018 Racial Discrimination among Different Races The United States is a very diverse country. Of its population, it comprises different types of races from other parts of the world. This is because of its advancement in technology, infrastructure and availability of work industry that people go to better their lives. According to the Statistical Atlas, there are around 64% of White, 16% of Hispanic, 13% of Black, 5% of Asian, and the rest of 2% for other races nowadays in this country ("Race Relations Unit - Demographics"). Although individuals from different countries have travelled overseas to make their lives better in the United States, they get faced with different challenges that hinder and lower their dreams in such countries. In the United States, racial discrimination is a regular thing that sometimes when individuals get to the state they are very sure that they have to face that challenge. The foreigners get treated differently from the citizens of the United States ("Myth of Race"). They are thought to be lazy and people who are not well of due to their skin color. It is challenging for an individual to convince the citizens of such a superpower nation that he can do something better than them because of that negative perception they have towards the other people of other countries. When it comes to access to facilities, the citizens have to be given priority then the foreigners will be considered later or sometimes will not even be recognized if they do even exist. It is very difficult for racism to be experienced in the countries were law is followed from the former to the later. The countries should respect human rights and allow them to explore other nations freely by allowing them to share their ideas that will help them to build the nation not to just discriminate them due to the perception them have in mind about the black Americans being arrogant and stupid. Through the experience I had in the United States, it will forever remain in my mind on how the foreigners get treated by the citizens of a particular nation. It explains why I used to ignore this severe problem while it is happening all over the world. However, now I became the minority in this country. I could not have known if discrimination of race existed if I could not have studied in the United States. Sometimes it is better to explore diversity which will make you know the life of other individuals out there. It is crucial for both the history of ourselves and that of the coming generations ("Myth of Race"). Through this one could be ready to tackle the problem even mentally before he faces it physically. After studying in the U.S. for more than three years, I have experienced stereotyping and unfair treatment from my teachers as well as my fellow students in the class who could not share even a pen with me. They though me to be minor who came to compete with them regarding getting enriched with education. They always mocked me by telling me that in my nation people are sufferers because no quality education’s why I decided to get into their country for more information. They could even nickname me names that made me feel that I was in a nation that I should not be. My life was uncomfortable since that was not the treatment that I expected from such a developed and enhanced country. I realize people do discriminate against others due to skin color and it just makes me feel so uncomfortable and unreasonable ("Race Relations Unit - Demographics"). Silence is not the way to solve it. In this paper, I want to talk about what makes the U.S. become a diverse country, how people treat others differently depending on their races, African American and Asian American in specific, and my expectation towards the problem for the future. I claim that racial discrimination is one of the most unfair, wrong and harmful problems in the world which I hope people can face it and express their feelings bravely. The vice is unexpected and should get punished by law ("Myth of Race"). In these following paragraphs, I would prove that racial discrimination is a serious problem that has been experienced by several individuals by using academic sources and in-class readings. In this class, we have talked about ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, genocide in Rwanda and so on. It seemed like racial discrimination would only happen in the third world countries but it is experienced in different nations where different races do exist. Racial discrimination should not exist but it can exist anywhere whenever a majority and minority group occurs. The majority group in most cases try to intimidate and treat the minor group in unfairly manner. Racism is a belief that people considering one race as being more superior to other races. Its behavior can range from verbal attacking to organizing different types of movements, movements for fighting against the benefits of other races for their own sake. However, many studies on DNA testing have shown that there are no superior or inferior among races and 99.9% of the entire human population have the same genes. Jeff Wheelwright has mentioned in "The Wandering Gene and the Indian Princess: Race, Religion, and DNA" that "When you compare the genomic texts of any two humans, they are 99 percent identical, even greater than 99 percent" (206). It means race does not exist biologically or genetically ("Myth of Race"). All men are identical despite the skin, eyes color or height different. The racism comes into existence through jealousy of the resources available and fear to compete in life among the very many races that join others to change their lives from low levels to high. In fact, this statement has been approved earlier in the 1950s by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Robert Sussman has stated in his introduction of the book "The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea", that race was only a myth and all human belong to the same species (1). He insists that race is just our misperceived. From the above evidences, it reflects that race is a symbolic violence which means that people believe things based on their own cognition, experiences of the social world and sentiment. Normally, this form of violence is invisible and occurs unconsciously. Even though there is no biological or genetic basis for race, racial discrimination is still happening around the world ("Race Relations Unit - Demographics"). In the following paragraphs, I would talk about racial discrimination between the races of African American and Asian American specifically. African American is one of the racial groups that has been prejudiced by the U.S. society. Although there are 13% of African American in the U.S population,” most of the black Americans experience the pinch of racism”. Brett Milano states in the article "Racial Discrimination Still Rules, Poll Says" that African Americans are facing unfair treatment mainly in health care, housing and accessing justice. For example, the African Americans in most cases get ignored when they have gone to seek help from the police for justice according to the law. In case of health problems, they get denied the chance to access health facilities which makes their health to be in a worse state making them unable to perform tasks (GORDON, 2018). Availability of job opportunities are termed to be meant for only the citizens of the United States. The African Americans are assigned dirty and low jobs that they wash even latrines for the Americans and get paid lowly ("Myth of Race"). They also experience unequal payments housing problems since they get allocated to houses that are of poor state but they get charged highly when compared to the citizens of the United States. As a country which proposes equality, these actions are strongly violating the rights of the African American citizens in the U.S. Yet, it is not the first day that they are being treated unfairly. We have heard of it severally but there is less action taken against the act. In the U.S. history, there are different violent movements fight against African American. One significant movement happened in the U.S. history is Ku Klux Klan (KKK). KKK was a violent organization which was mainly raised by the lower-class white Southern men. It was a secret fraternity initially, and then it held most power in the 1920s. There was three distinctive movements held by the KKK. In the article, "The Second Coming of the KKK" by Linda Gordon, she mentions that "the first Ku Klux Klan...aims of reposing servitude on African Americans after the end of slavery"(2). The "second Klan" commit to white supremacy, and the third KKK is opposed to the civil rights movement (GORDON, 2018). Generally speaking, they committed brutal acts like physical assault and murder to achieve their purpose which was to eliminate the African Americans from their nation ("Race Relations Unit - Demographics"). They knew through that the Africans would get discouraged and stop getting into America for studies and also jobs. African Americans are still being treated unequally due to various reasons, such as history and stereotype. Speaking of history, African Americans were being forced to move to the U.S. to become slaves in the first place. The Africans were known to be people of high energy to work but under pressure. In the article "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America" by Barbara Jeanne, she narrates how individuals lose jobs just because they talk and ask the reasons why there are fewer blacks in the job field compared to the whites ("Myth of Race"). She gives an example of a sports announcer in the United States who lost his job just because of asking in public why there were very few black coaches in basketball. The...