Polotics Paper

Racism in America

The United States of America is a multicultural nation. All races and cultures are almost

represented in America. Considered as a nation of immigrants, America has faced and still been

facing many racial issues from the Civil Right Movement until today. Racism has always been

the most discussed topic when it comes to any society problems. However, what is racism really?

Racism is the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another, that a person’s social

and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics. It is not

knowing anything about someone when you look at them, but disliking them anyway, not

because of who they are, but what they are. More importantly, racism is a weakness of the

society. As one of the world’s major problems, racism is not only a moral and spiritual issue but

it is also a political issue.

There are many different types of racism in America which include: white racism or

black racism, multicolor racism, religion racism and so on. All of these have seeped through

generation after generation to reach modern day America. Without being noticed, racism already

became part of life’s topic.

Joe R. Feagin and Hernan Vera, in their article “White Racism: A Sociology of Human

Waste,” discusses one particular type of racism: white racism. White racism, as they define, is

the “socially organized set of attitudes, ideas, and practices that deny African-Americans and

other people of color the dignity, opportunities, freedoms, and rewards that this nation offers

white Americans.” For most of the people, white racism simply means one thing: it is the feeling

of superiority over other race. Look back through the course of human society in history; one

will notice that the whites have always had this feeling of edge over people of other ethnic

backgrounds.

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Especially, to the black people, either from them or to them, the racism can be clearly

noticeable. “If...