long after the introduction of civil rights, several injustices and public outcries are being experienced,
Every time and day, people within the society continue to be discriminated based on their skin color. This is the same society that believes that racial discrimination and oppression ended a long time ago with the introduction of civil rights. However, it is hard to deny the misunderstandings that frequently occur in society due to differences in skin color. Unluckily, the belief that people are separated by race is still within human beings. Race as a term is used to describe the differences in physical characteristics that people have and mainly based on the skin’s color, and therefore it brings about dissimilarity and inequality. The phrase, race relations, means the ties among members and communities of different races within a country. Race relations are an essential issue in America where race is a much-discussed social as well as a political topic. The racial relationship issues began in the US after the immigration of Europeans and Africans into the country. Although the European immigrants assimilated into American culture with ease, African Americans were discriminated against within a rigid class system where the American economy benefited from their cheap labor. Race relations have come a long way from the times of slavery to the time of civil rights. Up to the present day, long after the introduction of civil rights, several injustices and public outcries are being experienced,
Several authors have written about the racial relations of the 20th and 21st centuries. The first one is Michelle Obama. In her memoir ‘Becoming,’ the former United States first lady invites readers into her world, recounting the experiences that shaped her. Being an African American, she gives accounts of how life was during her childhood in the south of Chicago, as an executive, a mother, and wife to a political figure. The second writer is Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson’s book ‘Just Mercy’ is an account of the author’s decades-long career as a legal advocate for the marginalized individuals who have been falsely convicted or harshly sentenced. He explains several social injustices based on racial discrimination he has encountered and demonstrates how the American criminal justice system and prisons are racially discriminative. Finally, ‘a struggle for freedom’ by Clayborne Carson utilizes a biographical approach to narrate the African American history. Carson provides personal stories that offer a glimpse of the racial relations between whites and African Americans. While Carson concentrates on the fight for freedom, and Obama’s account is inclined on politics, Stevenson narrates without fear or bias of how the blacks have been associated with crime and convicted for no reason. This explains why he wins the race relations of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Obama states that due to the white migration, most whites left the south side of Chicago, where she grew up, to settle in the suburbs. She argues that at a time while visiting her mother’s friend, Velma Steward, at a white neighborhood (Park Forest), someone intentionally scratched her father’s beloved car making an ugly gulch running from the car’s door to its tail (Obama 36). The whites in America segregate themselves from black Americans. This is evident in the disparities between the suburbs and Southside of Chicago. Obama argues that on the south side, the second graders were attending schools in a basement and had teachers that disliked them. She also notes that before the migration into suburbs, the Southside comprised 96% white families. However, due to increasing poverty and violence rates, the neighborhood was left for black families (Obama 31).
Racial relations are also evident in ‘becoming’ when Obama states that when she was growing up, people spoke more about race and inequality. Her parents always insisted that their skin color made the vulnerable. She purports that although her dad had skills and experience, his skin color prevented him from being promoted. Obama notes that racism was so evident that big factories preferred European immigrants rather than African Americans (Obama 42). She also argues that racism was also apparent in American society in the 21st century. She notes that when Barack Obama won the presidential election, she could see an ocean of whiteness and maleness, absence of diversity, from where she sat (Obama 265). Things were not different during the campaigns because they received racial slant commentaries like ‘do not let the black folks take over’ (Obama 234). Then, Obama argues that inequality race relations made the republicans to block every bill Barack proposed, regardless of whether it was good for the country or not. She reveals that some whites often referred to her as Barack’s baby mama and sometimes an angry woman. This phrase has been forever used to sweep black women to the perimeter of each room. She also recalls a time when a congressman made a fan of her ass.
Stevenson argues that although by the 1980s, racism and segregation brought about by the Jim Crow laws were no longer allowed by the law, racism was still heavily practiced and engrained in the United States. As a result, it affected the criminal justice system that was supposed to be fair. The very institutions created to ensure order and justice become abusive instruments and especially for the people of color. Once Stevenson is subjected to a humiliating pat-down by police officers near his home just because he was relaxing in his car listening to music, it dawns to him of how things would have deteriorated had he not remained calm. However, he used his experience in law to measure his response, of which not every black man is lucky to have. Any attempts to running could have raised suspicions or led to shooting at the worst. This implies that being black in the whites’ society stacks the odds against the African Americans.
Stevenson also notes how deep class-based inequalities and race relations play an essential role in the spread of structural violence. To back up this view, he gives accounts of various startling numbers. For instance, one in three black American men born in the 20th-century is expected to be imprisoned once in their lifetime. Again, almost 80% of the people on death row were blacks convicted of crimes against blacks (Stevenson 146). Most of these black men are not only wrongly imprisoned or shot by police offices but also face biased trials. For instance, Walter was wrongly convicted and even taken to the death row for six good years, even when evidence showed that he had not committed the crime and was proved well-mannered with no criminal history (Stevenson 221). Walter’s conviction was done on a racial basis since he is black, and the victim was white. His hearing is transferred to a county with white jurors, and his supporters excluded through police intimidation. Upon his release, Walter was traumatized and later died of dementia. This demonstrates the impact of race relations on the black, it not only stresses them, but it also kills them slowly.
Carson demonstrates inequality between black schools and the white schools when Barbara Johns leads her fellow students into a strike. Their school’s buildings were inadequate, with three temporary structures covered with tar paper. In contrast, the white high school in Farmville had a cafeteria, a gymnasium, infirmary, locker rooms, and an auditorium with fixed seats (Carson 382).
Carson also notes that in the mid-20th century, less than 5% of the black population in Mississippi were registered, voters. The blacks were not seen being worth of voting and hence were denied the voting rights. As a result, it was hard for blacks to acquire a political seat. They had no people representing them in the senate. He demonstrates how the blacks in American society have struggled to gain total equality in vain. He says being black means being hates. This is shown through the 16-year old black boy who was shot 39 times with four bullets in his head. Carson assumes they probably said the nigga was not dead and with hate and passion shot him thirty-nine times. One headshot would have been enough for the boy.
Just Mercy by Stevenson wins the race relations because it does not shy from the unbalanced horrors of America’s justice system and the forces keeping the system in place. He shows how being black makes one guilty from the moment they are born. The biased justice system gives whites the illusion of security at the expense of African Americans. This shows how blacks and whites relate to each other. There is no love for blacks because their skin color alone is evidence of criminal aspects. Throughout the story, Stevenson demonstrates how race relations and injustices continue to dominate and oppress black people. Because the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the United States had experienced the highest numbers of imprisoned people, race relations would not have been better addressed if not through the criminal justice system. A struggle for freedom by Carson is best for teaching the history of African Americans rather than race relations. It gives accounts of the folks who lived and others died fighting for the equality and freedom of the blacks in America. Although Obama’s becoming provides some accounts on race relations, it does not focus much on the topic but family-work balance and politics. As a result, Just Mercy wins the 0th and 21st centuries race relations of the United States of America.