Social and Racial Inequality in America

People today would argue that there is not any more racism in the United states today, but I beg to differ. Social and Racial inequality has been a big issue in the United States for hundreds of years since before the founding fathers. We have come a long way from the ways it used to be. African Americans were treated less than animals during the times of slavery. African Americans back then were treated harshly and unfairly. We had to deal with beatings, killings, and much more over the years of the foundation of the United States. Our founding fathers hoped that slavery would not exist up until this point; although improved, it has found more creative ways to hide. African Americans today still have to deal with social and racial inequality in many ways. But it is not only African Americans that have to deal with this, it is people of Hispanic, Indian, Muslamic, and other races as well. People today tend to turn a blind eye towards racial and social inequality when they see it. Primarily because they do not have it in their hearts to stand up for what they know is right, but instead they choose to let the injustice go on in front of them like nothing is happening. People today tend to let the bad things that happen to those that are being racially profiled go and do not try to stop it in some cases. There have been many instances where people should have stood up for what was right but chose to let it go on because they let fear overwhelm them, they are unaware or do not care enough for what was going on in front of them to stop it when they had the chance. Racial and social inequality here in the U.S is one of the leading and biggest factors that we try not to address.

It may not seem like it but there is a racial economic inequality that goes on in the U.S day by day and no one even notices it or at least tries to notice it. For example, “According to the Racial Wealth Divide report, the median Black family, with just over $3,500, owns just 2 percent of the wealth of the nearly $147,000 the median Caucasian family owns. The median Latino family, with just over $6,500, owns just 4 percent of the wealth of the median Caucasian family. Put differently, the median Caucasian family has 41 times more wealth than the median Black family and 22 times more wealth than the median Latino family.”(inequality.org) These statistics are mind blowing and it goes to show that there is still racial inequality in the U.S, but it is not just African Americans that face racial inequality in the U.S today, it’s other races as well. Today you tend to see that African American people are at the top of the charts for the highest unemployment rate. African American people have an astounding rate of 5.9% among the other ethnicities in the U.S. That may not seem like a lot but it is compared to the fact that blacks make-up a lot of the impoverished neighborhoods in the U.S. Racial inequality is still here in the U.S and it’s going to be here for years to come if we continue to turn a blind eye on things we can fix as humans.

Another way racial and social inequality is still here in the U.S is because African Americans we tend to get victimized and racially profiled a lot of the time and are imprisoned or sentenced to jail for a simple crime. For example, “The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 35% of state prisoners are white, 38% are black, and 21% are Hispanic. In twelve states more than half of the prison population is African American.”(sentencing project.org) If this does not show that racial inequality is real I do not know what is. Many of the African Americans that are in jail committed petty crimes. Today African Americans as a whole are one of the leading topics in the U.S. African Americans experience racial inequality in many ways. For example, I speak from a first hand account of this. When African Americans tend to walk in a restaurant that is majority white, you just feel the whole room’s atmosphere change. You can feel everyone looking at you from the time you walked in to the time you leave, it is like when you walk in they are either surprised you are there in the restaurant; because in a lot of cases we as blacks get stereotyped as not having any money to eat out and enjoy ourselves. When you walk in a restaurant and just know that people do not want you there because of your color and not who you are it makes you feel uncomfortable the whole time you are there until you leave. And when you leave it is like a heavy weight has just been removed from your chest and you are able to breath again. Also we as blacks get racially profiled for instance, when we are out and about with our families just having a good time and we are being ourselves, we tend to get looked at wrong because we are being loud when we laugh, we are playing around with each other, or we are having a heated debate about something that we all have different opinions on, and the list goes on and on. African Americans get looked down upon for all the wrong reasons and not the right ones most of the time. The way the U.S is today we as African Americans are made out to be worse than what we actually are. African Americans, as a whole get, stereotyped. For example a few stereotypes that goes around the U.S today is, “ Black people like watermelon” not all blacks like watermelon (nmaahc.si.edu) “ Black people like flashy cars with big rims and loud music” a lot of the times you will see blacks driving a regular car that everyone else drives. There are many stereotypes that African Americans face but that is just to name a few.

African Americans a lot of the time experience racial inequality just by people being prejudiced in schools. For example, “whites are more likely to point to individual prejudice rather than institutional racism as the bigger problem when it comes to discrimination against black people today (70% citing individual prejudice vs. 19% saying institutional racism). Blacks are more evenly divided: 48% say individual prejudice is the bigger problem, while 40% point to discrimination that is built into the country’s laws and institutions.”(pewsocialtrends.org) This is a big fact and it is true. African Americans when we tend to pay rent we experience a difference in amount paid compared to our neighbors. For example, “Results suggest that black households pay more for identical housing in identical neighborhoods than their white counterparts and that this rent gap increases with the fraction of the neighborhood white.(onlinelibrary.wiley.com) This is a big fact and it is right here in plain sight even though we as a whole try not to see or notice it. Racial inequality still goes on also in schools because boys of color who have a disability tend to get suspended more than others without. For example, “Nearly one in four boys of color, except Latino and Asian American students, with disabilities received an out-of-school suspension.”(thenation.com) Also a lot of schools try to not have classes that are required to have to graduate. For example, “A quarter of the schools with the highest percentage of black and Latino students did not offer Algebra II.” This should be an eye catcher but it is not because it still goes on. Also schools that offer advanced programs there had few if any people of color in them. For example, “Black and Latino students accounted for 40 percent of enrollment at schools with gifted programs, but only represented 26 percent of students in such programs. Another astounding is that “Black students accounted for 18 percent of the country’s pre-K enrollment, but made up 48 percent of preschoolers with multiple out-of-school suspensions.” That goes to show that some of these teachers do not really care; it is like they are saying it is one less person they have to deal with instead of them trying to sit down and talk with the parent/parents to find out what the problem is and see if there is a solution to keep them from getting in trouble.

If people still do not believe there is racial inequality going on in the world today even though it is all around us and it is happening everyday, then they are just choosing to ignore what is going on, consequently, because they do not wanna stand up for what is right, as well as they take part in these racial and social acts on people of color or they just really and truly do not believe in racial and social inequality and they think that the victims of these acts just let these acts happen to them and do not do anything about it. Racial and social inequality still exist in the world and one of the biggest places it exists is here in our very own United States of America. It is up to us as a whole, not just a few people among us, to stand up for what is right and stop these things from happening. Even though we have come a long way from African Americans being slaves, not being able to vote, have education, and have good jobs ,we still face hardships and it is like even though we have a system to stop these things from happening; it is like this same system is against us and still has loop holes underneath all the fine print to hold people of color down and allow people of color to stay jobless, homeless, educationless, and et cetera. We as a whole have to stand up for what is right and stop these racial and social injustices from happening. We cannot wait for others to step up to the plate and do it for us people of color. We no longer can just sit around and allow all these injustices to keep happening to we people of color, we have to stand up for once. Our ancestors were already treated harshly and inhumanely and they died for us hoping that things would be better for us and we would not have to experience racism anymore. Even though we do not have it nearly as bad as they did, we still cannot just watch these things happen to people of color. We have to stand up and fight for what all people deserve and push to make things right. Some ways we can start is by educating our little ones, start pushing for more funding in low-income areas, speak up on these racial and social inequalities, and get a lot more people of color back or in school to increase their chances as a whole. Racial and social inequalities have been around for many years and it is still going to be here for years to come unless we start now as a whole in trying to abolish it. And we start educating other people of color on what is really going on in our country and show them how to stand up for these things and not to just let them go bye and act like it did not happen at all. Racial and social inequality has to be stopped and we have to become more educated on things that go on in today’s society in order to make a change with how we are treated. Also we as African Americans can stop the way we are treated is by stopping the black on black violence we see everyday in today’s society. We’re out here killing each other over the same things that we want but do not need. We need to band together and learn how to help each other instead of tearing each other down. We as African Americans if we portray to other races that we do not care about one another then other races will think it is right to treat us African Americans the same way. If we do not have respect for one another, then other races will assume they do not have to respect us black either. We have to become one race instead of being divided amongst each other and band together because when we band together we are much stronger than if we were by ourselves. Therefore we would be able to stop the discrimination we experience in today’s society.