Racial Worldview (Essay Sample)

Name University Course Tutor Date Racial Worldview In the U.S, the general public and scholars have been made to consider human races as natural and different based on visible physical traits. The practices and policies on race in the U.S from 18th to 20th century indicated that there was a development of a unique ideology on human difference. This ideology has been referred to as racial worldview, and it is a systematic and institutionalized set of attitudes and beliefs towards races (Smedley and Smedley 15). Racial world view started as European-Americans were constructing the U.S society. These leaders made up cultural and behavioral traits linked to each race and associated superior characteristics with Europeans while negative and inferior traits were associated with Indians and blacks. Several deliberately constructed fictitious beliefs about different races were institutionalized and deeply rooted in the American thought. The U.S has implemented racial world view through institutional racism, which has been responsible for slavery, residential schools for American Indians, segregation, Indian reservations, interment camps, and settlement. Most of these racist institutions do not exist in the modern American society, but they have had a major impact on society (Smedley and Smedley 15). For instance, institutionalized racism has led to racial stratification in America and inequalities in employment, healthcare, housing, education, and other sectors of the economy. In the 20th century laws to criminalize discrimination were enacted in the U.S, but major inequalities among races still exist up to day (Smedley and Smedley 20). Institutional racism is different from the common racial bias or bigotry. Institutional racism is characterized by the existence of systematic practices and policies in institution that disadvantage certain ethnic or racial groups. Institution racism exists in the U.S because the power to develop and implement policies in most institution is vested in white people. Bank lending policies like redlining and restrictive house contract agreements are example of institutionalize racism in the U.S (Smedley and Smedley 21). Other examples of institutionalized racism in the U.S include preventing people from certain races from advancing their careers and denying them employment; racial profiling by security agents; underrepresentation of people from certain races in the media; and use of stereotypical racial caricature by institutions like Indian mascots are commonly used in sports (Kamali 31). Institution racism is responsible for the inequalities that exists between different races in America, and this is evident a study done in King County in 2008. The population of King County is 70 percent white, while people of color make up 30 percent (Kamali 31). One of the inequalities caused by institutionalized racism is seen in term of the gap between the richest and the poorest. Non-whites in the U.S are more likely to be poor than whites. The statistics from the King County study revealed that 19.2 percent of Latinos and 29.1 percent of African Americans lived below the federal poverty line (Kamali 32). Only 7.6 percent of whites lived below the federal poverty line; in addition the study found that the average income of whites was almost twice that of African Americans. In terms of food security, 29.2 percent of Latino families indicated that the money they allocate for food in most cases does not last; 15.5 percent of African American households also reported food insecurity while only 5.3 of white household reported the same (Kamali 32). In terms of youth imprisonment, the study found that majority of youths who engaged in crime was whites accounting for 66 percent of all youth related crimes. However, majority of youths that were locked up in Juvenile Corrections were youths of color making up 65 percent of inmates. Racial worldview has affected and reinforced the experience of African descendant communities in the U.S by influencing the social class occupied by African Americans (Kamali 33). In the U.S race and class have a deep connection because of institutionalized racism. Current studies show that African American children have high chances of living in poverty ...