I believe that racism is still a problem in America, but evidence such as the Presidential election proves that the problem is getting better. Sometimes I think that we should be focusing on more important issues in the world like hunger and poverty versus racism. This is similar to another post about why we are talking about the issue in the first place. You decide.
President Obama walks fine line on race, justice
11 years ago
Unfortunately racism is so interconnected with poverty and hunger that talking about the former is implicitly addressing issues of the latter. Who are those typically being suppressed, neglected, laid off from work? What percentage of those living below the poverty line is black, and why? The web of socioeconomic issues are undoubtedly interconnected.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that the presidential election proves that the problem is getting better. I think this is that subconscious racism part of what MLK was getting at. People want to think that just because we now have a black president that we have moved mountains and we are all good now, but I do not think that is the case. While it is a huge breakthrough for the black community, I think that part of the white voters had the mentality of "well I'm not a racist, so I'll vote for the black guy" or something similar to that. He also will be more closely critiqued for everything he does because he is the first black president. If we weren't concerned about race and we accepted people no matter what, we wouldn't need to talk about President Obama as the first black president, he would just be our current president. We say he is our first black president because there is still a huge racial problem in the United States. Piggybacking off of Nick a little bit, I feel like race is a key contributor in those things, so it is essential to first address racial issues.
ReplyDeleteI will agree that race is such a fundamental issue that it really is compelling that we discuss it first, when i was in South Africa over jan plan at a Geology seminar, there was the question of why aren't there more Black geologists? I mean these geologists (who are White and mostly foreigners in South Africa) are the people deciding on the use of the natural resources in South Africa, this is a country with 79% Black Africans (CIA WOrld factbook)Now how is that different from colonialsm when the Blacks were driven away from the homelands and they resources exploited without their having a say in it? Do not mean to get carried away, but race is going to be an indefinitely lasting issue, that needs to be discussed if not pulled apart. Has the problem become better? I would say to a small extent, and that being as far as we have no labelled places for "Whites only" or "Blacks only" type thing but the separations is still very loud and clear. one just needs to look around
ReplyDeleteI agree with a lot of what has already been said about Mandy's post. Racism is definitely less prevalent than it was in the 60's, but it is not insignificant enough to put in the back of our minds. It is still an important issue to discuss, especially because like Nick said its interconnectedness with other issues (hunger, poverty). It's also important to discuss racial issues because it is the only way to better understand them. We should also keep in mind that although racism is not much of an issue is certain progressive regions/locations of the country, there are other places where it is more of a problem.
ReplyDelete