The Overlooked Racism in the United States
Racism in the United States has been a major socio-economic and political challenge, especially among African Americans. While a significant population among the whites disregard the existence of racism, racial discrimination existed explicitly during slavery and Jim Crow eras, racism in the contemporary United States is more elusive. The purpose of this script is to demonstrate the different ways in which the people of color experience racial discrimination in the contemporary United States. While some individuals may overlook certain kinds of racism because of lack of the right information, other people just ignore at the expense of the discriminated populations. This script targets the population that undervalues the importance of affirmative action to address the existing racism with historical background in the United States. From a historic standpoint, many African Americans suffered from slavery, unconstitutional legislation, and police brutality among other harsh experiences.
Anti-racist Script
African American: Most of the southern states of the U.S are known to be good in farming and exporters of farm produce. Most of the farmers in these states owned large tracks of land. Were these lands state-owned or private lands? Where did the landowners or the farmers get the labor force? These big tracks of land were private lands owned by the whites influenced by American capitalism. According to Adelman, the farmers and other whites acquired black slaves from sub-Saharan Africa (Adelman, n.a). The black slaves did not voluntarily work in the plantations. Adelman asserts that slavery was an institution that affected African American lives during the era of slavery and their descendants suffer in the modern United States in various ways.
For many years until the enactment of civil rights law, African Americans across the United States were denied their natural and basic rights including the right to free movement, association, and free speech. African Americans did not have the right to vote, own land, or live in their preferred region. Education to African Americans was a nightmare. When the blacks began to go to schools, they could not mingle with the whites and hence there were segregated in white-only schools.
A White Police officer: it is right for individuals to join their preferred schools.
African American: Creating institutions, such as schools for a particular race in a multiracial environment is a form of racism. This kind of segregation made it easy for the whites to intimidate efforts by the African Americans for equal rights (Adelman, n.a). Besides, the government used its institutions to subdue efforts by African Americans. The purpose of introducing policing was questionable.
White Police officer: Was the introduction of a bureaucratic and centralized police force in the United States in the 1830s wrong?
African American: No. U.S cities were growing steadily and policing was necessary to control disorder and crime occurring from the effects of urbanization, especially prostitution and drunkenness.
White Police officer: Policing followed a good path as a nationwide institution. As just said, policing was introduced to deal with crime and violence (Bolton & Feagin, 2004). During slavery, the southern states had instituted “Slave Patrols” for chasing runaway slaves and return them to their slave owners, apprehend slaves, deter slave uprisings and maintain discipline among slaves.
African American: The southerners twisted the initial functions of policing to compare to the slave patrols. Other
White Police Officer: African Americans were poor, uneducated, and engaged in alcohol drinking and prostitution. Police officers did not use excessive force for African Americans. The officers worked tirelessly to maintain law and order and prevent violence (Schwartz, 2020). However, one could have a perception that the officers were against African Americans because most of the people arrested were African Americans.
African American: Was it legal for the officers to use excessive force in their operations including killing the African Americans.
White Police Officer: Policing is about maintaining law and order by minimizing public activities that can bring disorder. Most of the African American protestors and demonstrators were hostile to the instructions given by the officers, the courts, and other government authorities. Oftentimes, the demonstrators were a threat to the life of the police and hence the police had to fire in the air.
African American: Instead of fighting crime, corruption emerged and added to the existed crime, public disorder, and prostitution among another vice. Police brutality towards African Americans was evident. Although alcohol drinking was the primary cause of crime, the creation of laws encouraging the sale of alcohol was the greatest irony (Adelman, n.a). According to Adelman, African Americans have always worked under dangerous work environments and sometimes protested. Police officers directed their efforts to the protesters while an engaging excess force arrested most of the blacks while overlooking the whites. The government encouraged by introducing the “Prison and Industrial Complex.”
White police Officer: According to the U.S Department of Justice, the Prison and Industrial Complex were introduced to help in the management of increased incarcerations.
African American: As private-owned incarceration centers, the complexes encouraged private corporations to use Africa American prisoners as labor force and for industrial experimentation. Every white officer overlooked serious crimes and focused on demonstrators because of poor work conditions. African Americans formed the largest population of the protestors for their civil rights and good work conditions (Bolton & Feagin, 2004). Police brutality has claimed the lives of many African Americans, and the historical racial discrimination has continued to make it hard for African Americans to education and employment opportunities and hence creating a poverty cycle. As such, there is a need for affirmative action to correct racial inequality problem in the United States.
References
Adelman L. (n.a). “A Long History of Racial Preferences – For Whites.” From RACE: The Power of an Illusion, Background Readings.
Bolton, K., & Feagin, J. (2004). Black in Blue: African-American police officers and racism. Routledge.
Schwartz, S. A. (2020). Police Brutality and Racism in America. Explore (New York, Ny).