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Significance of Race in the US today
The United States is home to people from a diverse culture who form a crucial pillar of the global economy. The facts about race are interesting to the point of concluding that race is a made-up concept that human beings can live without, for peaceful co-existence. However, for centuries, the class of people dominating the US society has continually practiced racism, thereby engraving it in the past and present generations. The concept of race has been and continues to be a significant issue in US society because the ruling class will not have it any other way.
The need to maintain a gap between classes of people fuels oppression, which, in a way, characterizes racism. Not all whites are wealthy, just as not all blacks are financially unstable. Based on the past leadership in the US, the whites have dominated the political front, which governs the distribution of state resources and controls most of the business operations. It is interesting to note that the concept of race has no genetic basis and that no human subspecies exists. Therefore, both black and white human beings are primarily similar, except for minor variations that can exist within any local population. Why, then, do modern people focus on race as the basis to exercise supremacy?
The idea of race was invented alongside freedom as an attempt to explain why the ruling class and class could not share similar rights and freedoms. Power sources have perpetuated the idea of racism by advocating for white supremacy (Allen 71). For generations, the whites have been brought up under the impression that they are superior to other minority individuals, which gives them the green light to oppress minority groups. On the other hand, for generations, the blacks have been subjected to discrimination and oppression that have created an inferiority complex, which sometimes inhibits them from speaking out and taking action during.
From an individual level, structural racism affects the non-dominant groups by instilling fear in them, which prevents them from enjoying their rights and freedoms. For instance, social media platforms highlight numerous videos of black people being followed by whites who accuse them of crimes they are about to commit or have committed, by virtue of their skin color, and without proof. Structural or institutional racism promotes inequality among races (Allen 76). Episode 1 of While Black videos shows how Joel and his family experience racial profiling when they are followed by a white manager out of as Nike store, who accuses them of stealing a basketball, without proof. Joel ends up having to provide the receipt to officers on standby for his family to be released, which is defaming on so many levels.
Institutional racism still affects non-dominant groups, as seen from the exercises on privilege, where people from different races relate to some experiences of racism, whether in their social settings or the workplace. Therefore, racism has been engraved into every fiber of the modern society, making it a conscious and unconscious experience. In modern society, the dominant race enacts negative attitudes towards blacks (Allen 84). However, today, minority groups have been empowered to realize their rights and freedoms. Moreover, more and more dominant racial extremists are brought to account for their actions and negligence. Despite the fact that racism is still predominant in modern American society, both the dominant and non-dominant groups are becoming informed about the ills of the term racism.