The previous paper illustrated the racial discrimination dominating the U.S. in almost all sectors. Racism offers unwarranted disadvantages to the minorities and advantages to the dominant cultures that is the white. The discrimination ranging from the lack of opportunities to the biased criminal justice system is evidence of the existing racism dominating the country. This paper aims at depicting and discussing the social constructs or structural settings that provide the base for the prevailing racism in the country. Most immigrants in America migrate to the country in the false belief of the American dream and freedom only to realize that their skin color inhibits their paths of success. The Civil Rights Movements saw the abandonment of the racial segregation laws in America. Lives were lost as the minorities mainly the blacks and Latinos for equal treatment in the 1960s, but more than five decades after the Civil Rights Movements, racism is still high due to the structural settings.
Racism in the U.S. is based on micro and macro aggression, and social structure. Micro-aggression is the uneasy feeling of the minorities thus dependent on power, privilege, and daily life. America is built on the preference to support white supremacy. Thus, the minorities are disadvantaged in different forms. The discrimination makes them feel weak and underprivileged, which makes their everyday lives challenging. The micro-aggression although challenging to note is divided into three main categories namely micro-assaults, micro-insults, and micro-invalidations (Sue, 2010). These classes demonstrate the discriminative factors, for instance, the first category includes verbal or non-verbal attacks towards people with the intention of hurting them hence the term ‘good old-fashioned racism’ (Sue, 2010).
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The second cover rude and racial comments that tend to stigmatize the minorities or devalue their existence in different settings. Lastly, the third category refers to the remarks made that tend to exclude the minorities or show disregard for their efforts or complains (Sue, 2010). Macro-aggression depicts the micro-aggression under a basic platform. Multiple studies demonstrate that success is dependent on the level and quality of education. The lack of opportunities for most marginalized groups reduces the chances of their children accessing quality education. The education sector built on a basic racism setting with the wealthy benefiting from quality and advanced knowledge.
According to Osanloo, Boske, & Newcomb (2016), the lack of opportunities for the parents leads to the blacks and Latino children having lower quality education and with the White parents more likely to earn more than the minorities, their children access high-quality education. The minorities are thus more likely to be poor, and even school does not guarantee better living standards with the organizations or companies more likely to contact a person with a white name than a person with a black or Latino name following an interview (Steele, 2010). The macro-aggression as discussed above demonstrate the purposeful, and deliberate acts that impact at the individual level. The education system intentionally deprives the minorities the opportunity to compete in the job market with their whites. The macro-aggression are made possible by the structural racism that dominates the country.
Structural racism is the legitimization and normalization of various dynamics that offers benefits the whites at the expense of the colored. These dynamic base their arguments on the historical, institutional, cultural, and interpersonal bases to depict the whites to be superior to other races. Since independence, the white supremacy dominates the American policymaking with the whites being the dominant force in political, economic, and social structures. The segregation of school before the Civil Rights Movements depict the separation that still dominates today’s social society with the white more likely to enjoy better jobs, living areas, enjoy their civil rights than the minorities do due to the disparities in policies. As earlier indicated, white interviewees have a higher chance of getting a call or securing employment than blacks do or Latinos are due to the notion and stereotyping belief that they are better than the minorities.
According to a Pew Research Center (2016), organizations tend to treat a black interviewee with at least eight-year’ experience equal to a white interviewee without any job experience thus making it difficult for the blacks to acquire employment. The study continued by depicting that most of the organizations are unwilling to promote black or Latino employees to managerial positions. Therefore, most top places are preserved for the whites. Although the American constitution prohibits discrimination based on race or gender, the criminal justice system has done nothing to limit the continued overlooking of minorities in the top managerial positions. Du Bois claims about the criminal justice system depict the structural racism in the country. He argued that laws were meant to ensure that the whites remained the dominant force in the country with regulations that target the whites more unlikely to be implemented compared to those that target the blacks.
Du Bois used the death penalty institution to limit slave trade resulted in few convictions whereas crimes such as drug trafficking or traffic rules tend to over-investigate the blacks (Jones, 2013). The illustration indicates that the U.S. was founded on racism hence the legitimization of the structural racism. The dominant culture influences the cultural and social structure of any government, but in a democratic setting, as America tends to refer to herself, the laws and opportunity should be equally distributed. The political and economic structure of the country revolves around the whites and wealthy. They are the business owners who reduce costs by exploiting the minorities, while profits finance campaigns for their chosen candidates. The past U.S. presidential campaign depicted the white supremacy in the abusive and racial comments used by the current American president Trump. He disregarded the minorities by making offensive remarks towards Mexican immigrants and threatening to deport them. The whites and his fan cheered the comments as they saw the opportunity to strengthen their racism.
Lastly, president Trump’s tenure is not short of controversy and violent demonstrations to depict the white supremacy, for instance, the recent riots in Charlottesville, Va., Where enraged white men demonstrated calling for white supremacy. The president surprised most people by his move to support the demonstrators (Gay, 2017). The recent statement by the president regarding the black NFL players’ in their fight against racism are some of the illustrations that white supremacy is taking over the country. The comments disregard the constitution, but the whites have the power to oppress the minorities. The blacks and Latinos, on the other hand, have limited power due to the overwhelming power the whites have and the limited economic power to aid their influence in the running of the government (Gay, 2017). The limited power exposes them to the continuous discrimination and engagement in crime make them fall in the hands of the white supremacists.
References
Gay, R. (2017, August 8). Opinion | Hate That Doesn’T Hide. Nytimes.com . Retrieved on October 16, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/opinion/sunday/hate-that-doesnt-hide.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FUnited%20States%20Politics%20and%20Government
Jones, C. (2013, July 25). The System Isn't Broken, It Was Designed That Way: A Critical Analysis of Historical Racial Disadvantage in the Criminal Justice System. Hampton Institution.Org . Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/systemisntbroken.html#.WeMmQbVRW1t
Osanloo, A., Boske, C., & Newcomb, W., (2016). Deconstructing Macroaggressions, Microaggressions, and Structural Racism in Education:Developing a Conceptual Model for the Intersection of Social Justice Practice and Intercultural Education. International Journal of Organizational Theory and Development Vol. 4, No. 1 Retrieved on October 16, 2017, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301201301_Deconstructing_Macroaggressio Microaggressions_and_Structural_Racism_in_Education_Developing_a_Conceptual_Model_for_the_Intersection_of_Social_Justice_Practice_and_Intercultural_Education_found_at_h
Pew Research Center. (2016). Discrimination and racial inequality . Pew Research Center: Social and Demographic Trends. Retrieved October 16, 2017, from http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/3-discrimination-and-racial-inequality/
Steele, C. M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what can we do. New York, NY: W. W. Norton Publishing.
Sue, D. W. (2010). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Race, gender sexual orientation. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons.
