Discussion of 'Minority Groups in Modern America Post Civil Rights Era'

Minority Groups in Modern America Post Civil Rights Era

‘’Minority Groups in Modern America Post Civil Rights Era” attempts to discuss ethnic diversity in the United States and how is the minority population of the country is perceived by the majority of Americans, which refer to the white race. Despite modern day advancements, the aim of this paper is to validate that America is still experiencing race relations such as they did during the Civil Rights era of the sixties. To this effect, the paper will use examples from primary sources recording past civil rights movements to outline various instances of discrimination that pertains to precise situations showing how unfairly the minorities are treated In the United States.

Keywords: racism, discriminations, North America, racial violence, Civil Rights, minorities, race relations.

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The United States of America is known as one of the most multicultural countries in the whole world because of its ethnical diversity. The majority of Americans are represented by white people. For this reason, other races are considerate minorities, because this group of people represent less than half of the population in the country. Throughout the years, repression to minorities has been part of the American culture and economy. Furthermore, different persons who make part of minority groups, deal with discrimination and unfair treatment on a daily basis in the United States. Therefore, the expectation of living in an American society that offers equal opportunities to all remains uncertain for the American Society.

TheAfrican-American Civil Rights Movement, was an important social fight in the United States against not only the racialism to African-Americans, but also to the violation of the enumerated citizenship rights in the constitution and federal law of the country. Martin Luther King Jr. was and still is one of the most important figures in the 1960’s, because of his leadership and his characteristic social organization strategy. However, some people might claim that this enormous movement was not directed and created only by one person. SociologistDoug McAdamhas stated that, "in King's case, it would be inaccurate to say that he was the leader of the modern civil rights movement...but more importantly, there was no singular civil rights movement. The movement was, in fact, a coalition of thousands of local efforts nationwide, spanning several decades, hundreds of discrete groups, and all manner of strategies and tactics—legal, illegal, institutional, non-institutional, violent, non-violent. Without discounting King's

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importance, it would be sheer fiction to call him the leader of what was fundamentally an amorphous, fluid, dispersed movement.’’ Explaining that the Civil Rights movement besides being an historical episode for the United States, was also black power movement against racial segregation, which last for decades. For this reason, not only one person can be considered as a leader or a ‘’hero’’ of the campaign, preferring to name those millions of persons, communities and organizations involved during all those years in the fight the protagonists of the movement.

The American civil rights legislations of the 60’s rapidly became the foundation for those programs that gave more opportunities for black students, women and workers, and for those who suffered from racial segregation. For African-Americans, the achievement of the citizenship rights represented the start of a new era, but the question that is still being asked by many is, Is the United States a nation of equal society?

Even though the minority group that has had the tensest relationship with American civilization has been African Americans, immigrants had also suffered the rejection of those citizens that for some reason feel intimidate by the big amount of people migrating from different countries. Furthermore, they act against immigrants because they feel that somehow foreigners are trying to take away their identity, destroy the country or alter the culture.

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According to By William Harms (2006), ‘’when it comes to being proud of their country, people in United States and Venezuela lead the world, according to a new report produced by the National Opinion Research Center. Among the 33 nations surveyed, the United States was the nation with the leading score in pride over specific accomplishments and Venezuela was the leading nation in the general national pride portion of the survey.’’ Understanding how Americans are so culturally reserved, it is alarming for them how The United States of America is becoming more racial diverse every day, because of the opportunities of a better type of living that it might offer to some immigrants. For this reason, Racism remains a major phenomenon. Discrimination continues to occur in different aspects such as, employment, education, body expression, and socioeconomic inequality.

Defenders might say that everyone in the United States despite nationality, color or race has the same rights and that every citizen is protected by the law. However, in the view of the U.S. Human Rights Network, network of scores of US civil rights and human rights organizations, "Discrimination permeates all aspects of life in the United States, and extends to all communities of color". As a matter of fact, racism has been part of the American culture since forever, and minorities have been, in certain way, acclimate to be treated differently in some aspects. Because racial rejection has been part of a daily-basis routine, people might see some racial situation as normal. Moreover, more than half of immigrants prefer to remain silence in any situation of discrimination, thinking that because of the fact that they are no citizens of

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American, and also because of the fact that many immigrants live with the fear of being reported or expelled out of the country, they prefer to remain silence instead, ignoring their rights.

According to an article called The Trauma of Racism: America's Original Sin (Ponds, 2013) ‘’Once called "America's Original Sin" (Hulteen & Wallis, 1992), racism is exhibited in the physical, mental, economic, and spiritual violence done to people of color. In the United States, Native Americans, the indigenous people, were the first to experience this violence, followed by black Africans, and later to various degrees, other people of color as they immigrated to the United States.’’ Showing how this issue has affected America through the years in many aspects, referring that not only African-Americans has been rejected by the segregation of racism, but also all others that conform the minority part of the population.

(Ponds, 2013) ‘’Many view racism as overt acts against people of color. Since blatant incidents occur less frequently than in the past due to changing laws and social mores, racism appears to be on the decline. However, the AP poll suggests it is not. Instead, racism is far more subtle than most recognize. Regardless of conscious intent, everybody in our society is conditioned, affected, and infected by racism.’’

Moreover, with this statement we can clearly understand that America is a country where racism cannot be called an overcame issue, segregation is however part of American culture and

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problem that daily basis faced by millions. People may think that only because of the federal laws that have been created recently and that now protect all citizen and defend African-Americans, times of repression have ended, however, the truth is that now this only has become an excuse for people to deny the fact that The United States of America is far from being a society where we are all seen and treated as equals.

On the other hand, generalization is a way of racism. The overall meaning of generalization is that people assume that some persons depending on their color, nationality, sexuality and others may act the same way. Make inferences about how people might behave is what keep segregations and racism alive.

(Pipper, 2007)‘’A contribution of the civil rights movement was to establish the point that a multiracial society cannot be truly democratic unless social equality itself becomes a matter ofpersonalmorality.’’

In short, it is possible to say that racism in the United States of America is going to be part of the people and part of their culture, and this will be an issue that will remain until society finally assumes ''equality'' as something moral. Racism and discrimination to the minority group of the population in American will end the day that people stop rejecting, generalizing and discriminating others that might be considered ‘’different’’ because of their human quality and not only because is restricted by the federal law and the constitution.

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References

Ponds. K.T, (2013). The Trauma of Racism: America's Original Sin

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Greenblatt. A, (2003). Are Blacks Still Handicapped by Racism?

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Welsh. D, (2009) Racism and The Law: Slavery, Integration, and Modern Desegregation

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