Sundown Towns vs. Segregation Social Sciences Essay (Essay Sample)

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Racial Segregation in Sundown Towns
Racial prejudice is a fundamental matter of relationships that exists between different racial groups. The matter presupposes that the racially prejudiced persons perceive themselves as belonging to a given racial group. Besides, the same perception is assigned to other groups against whom they are prejudiced. Therefore, a form of racial identification is a crucial framework for racial prejudice. Scholars regard racial prejudice as to how certain racial groups conceive of themselves and other racial groups. Some of the factors that promote racial prejudice such as the feeling of superiority, a feeling to claim advantages and privileges to certain areas, feeling that other aces are alien and intrinsically different, and suspicion and fear that subordinate race contains design on the prerogatives of the dominant race (Blumer, 1958). In America's history, racial prejudice has existed for the longest time and led to the segregation of races resulting in Sundown cities.
Sundown Towns are all-white cities, neighbourhoods, or counties that use racist rules, intimidation, and threats or use of violence to exclude Blacks and other minorities. The name derives from the posted and verbal notices given to Blacks that they must leave by Sundown even though they might be permitted to work or move in a community during the daytime (Loewen, 2018). The term most commonly applies to the compulsory exclusion of Blacks, prohibitions against Jews, Native Americans, Chinese, Japanese, and other ethnic groups are also included in the history of sundown towns. Ethnic segregation was also done through violence in sundown cities (Blumer, 1958). African Americans who remained in Sundown towns were harassed, abused, arrested, and beaten even during the daytime. Most cases, it was not unusual for black peoples’ vehicles to be tracked to the city limits by police or residents traveling through these communities. Hostility against African Americans resulted in extrajudicial killing in severe cases.