| Racism Essay, Research Paper
Racism
Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, there is always somebody different.
The American society focuses on that person, or group of people. They made them feel
worthless and they treated them like animals.
Imagine walking down the street and having people stare at you or call you
names, or talk behind your back. Imagine not knowing the time because nobody will tell
you. Why won?t they tell you the time, or spare you some change? Because your black.
Actually, because your skin is a different color, your because your a different kind of
religion. In a way I admire them because they?ve survived for hundreds of years until
they were free, and now that they?re free, the modern white men harasses them and beats
them. I mean, they even had a world wide organization named for them.
The KKK has been around for awhile. The KKK or the Ku Klux Klan, was
started to get rid of blacks and Jewish people. The author of “A Monument to Racism”
writes in her article that she was in Flowery Branch, Georgia, and in front of Danny
Carver?s house, he?s a KKK leader, was 8 or more signs, and on these signs read: “A
brain is a terrible thing to waste, that?s why niggers don?t have one. (Glamour 110).”
Another sign said “NAACP” or “Niggers, Alligators, Apes, Coons, and Possums. Or
insisting that blacks don?t have brains and that they should be treated like animals.
There?s a figurine in front of the yard that had 4 young black men sitting on it with 2
KKK hooded members by them. To top it off, Carver?s lawn was on the Atlantic
highway, the main way through the capital. I strongly agree with Valerie Joseph when
she says that she “wanted to believe that people actually cared, she wanted to believe that
there were lawyers, activists, parents, church groups of all races that were bombarding
this man with phone calls and letters. She hoped that maybe teenagers would plan to
smash the figurines in the middle of the night. (Joseph 110). You can help stop this, all
you have to do is try to accept black people as you do anyone else. If you can?t, you
don?t have to express it, keep it to yourself. If you hear somebody saying something
about somebody else, all you have to do is say listen, there just as equal as you are. If
you do it, pretty soon they?ll quit.
I was in a situation one time at a bus station and was wearing baggy pants and a
shirt, I also had my beeper on. I came into the bus station off the bus and I sat down. I
heard footsteps coming closer to me and I thought I smelled alcohol. When I turned
around there was a man standing there, I said is there something I can do for you? He
turned to me and got right up in my face and said why do you wear such baggy pants? I
said their comfortable, and “Why do you wear such tight pants?” You know the old
saying: Don?t EVER mess with a drunk person? Well, I didn?t take that to heart at that
point, and the man said “What are you, some kinda nigger?” I wanted to say are there
different kinds? Then the man started taking off his gloves, he said “If you were a
nigger, I?d hit you!” I didn?t really care if he did because he?d be the only one paying for
it. Actually, I?d probably be in the hospital because that guy looked like he could pack a
punch. Then the next day I seen him talking to a BIG black man, just conversing, no
racism in his voice. It just goes to show you how hypocritical people can be when
they?re racist, but not to black people?s faces.
Many years ago the states had to force business? and schools? to allow blacks in.
For example, the Brown V. Board of Education, or years before federal troops forced
Little Rock Central high School to admit black students. The question I ask is why
would they want to be there if the government had to force the school system to let them
in?
Also, many years ago, there was a segregation. I?m sure all of you know what
that was. It was simply when blacks and whites were separated in everyday life. They
had different water fountains, restrooms, different lines at plays and movies, and blacks
also had to sit in the back of the bus while whites had top picks on seats even if it meant
standing when a white person took your seat. Then, segregation finally was abolished.
“As blacks acquired middle-class status, just like whites before them, they moved out of
central cities, and the sustaining buffers between lower-class blacks and the surrounding
white role models, etc.- were largely removed.” (USA TODAY 55)
I was looking through “Time” magazine and I found an article that was titled
“Evict thy Neighbor.” It was about a couple that had been getting harassed by their
neighbors, they sued for $10 million in damages. Instead, U.S. District Court judge Ann
Williams authorized a settlement agreement, that will be that the harassers will have to
leave their home within 180 days.
So, there are all these people doing this, but yet they know they could go to jail.
We ask our selves, why do people do this? Well, it all started with slaves. The
African-Americans came to the United States hundreds and hundreds of years ago from
Africa. Most of the slaves came from Ethiopia, Zaire, Somalia, and Nigeria. They came
across the Atlantic Ocean with some of the first settlers. They were then sold at slave
trades and auctioned off. But, back to the modern day, blacks would think that they?d
have some sort of protection or sense of safety with police officers, but then back to the
Rodney King trial in 1993 when police pulled over a drunken black man that they said
was swerving over the road. When the man, Rodney King, got out of his car, more than 3
police officers approached him and beat him almost to death. The whole thing was
caught on tape with one of the police car?s dash mounted cameras. the four identified
police officers were put on trial, when the verdict came that they were found not guilty,
the L.A. Riots started almost immediately. People were beating others, looting stores,
and blacks were shooting and beating white police officers.
Some think that there would?ve been the L.A. riots all over again if the jury
would?ve found O.J. Simpson guilty last year.
As I said before, there is something you can do. You might not be able to stop
riots, but you?ll probably make a persons day better.
You might know of Texaco, It?s a large chain of gas stations throughout the
United States. Several employees have been called “porch monkeys” and “orangutans”.
Texaco pled guilty because an employee walked in on a faculty meeting and heard white
employee?s copying the way African Americans talk. All the white employees were also
getting promoted to a higher rank when they were doing nothing, when black employees
were working hard and getting they?re checks reduced. The settlement at Texaco was
$115 million in cash to about 1,400 current and former black workers who served. $26.1
million in pay raise over five years for black employees. $35 million for a task force to
set up diversity training programs, and an independent panel to oversee Texaco?s
employment practices. Another suit was filed against “Avis” for refusing to serve blacks
in North and South Carolina. By now it should be apparent to everyone that bigotry still
flourishes in many parts of America.
Also, rappers, who we all know are mostly black, are harassed and put down
daily, because of what they sing about. nobody criticizes country singers who sing about
the same thing over and over, or the love songs that sing about the same thing. It
shouldn?t matter what color they are or what they look like, it?s the music they sing.
Every parent thinks that rap is bad, because it has a few swears, but not if you get the
edited version. Everyone thinks that rappers commit crimes. Blacks make up 12 percent
of the population, 44 percent of arrests made are blacks being arrested for violent crimes
(US News 93). A black man can not even get a cab for 3 hours because cabbies are
afraid to drive through the ghetto. What is the ghetto? A place where homeless and low
income black and white people live and hang out.
If you just think before you talk you can make a difference, if you put yourself in
all these situations I?ve just mentioned, you would want to make a difference.
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