A Personal Opinion on Racism and Ethnicity in the United States

Today’s society views the institution of race in a derogatory way. I believe that even though there have been certain instances in history where whites have used race unfairly to their advantage, white European explorers were innocent in their categorization of races. In Omi and Winant’s piece, they explain how explorers accidentally came upon natives and were completely confused. They had never seen anything like them before. The natives had the same structures as the Europeans but didn’t look exactly the same.

Explorers were frightened of the new people because they were previously unknown to the explorers. In order for the explorers to make sense of this, they decided to put the natives in a different category from themselves based on skin color. I don’t think they did this with the intention of denying these people rights or forcing coercive labor, but the Europeans ignorantly believed they were smarter and therefore more powerful than the new group of people they just discovered. With this innocent categorization based merely on the color of one’s skin, the modern racial system was born.

We discussed in class that anyone who is influenced by or believes in the racial structure is a racist, an assertion that I take to heart. However, I think there is a misconception, stemming from the times when slavery was being practiced in the U.S., that racism can only be reciprocated from whites to other races. While this has some historical truth, I believe that racism is becoming more and more of a two-way street. Whites are far more tolerant and friendly towards other races today than ever before, while it seems that other races are just becoming more vocal about their distrust and dislike. This is very evident in current events that are taking place in cities like Baltimore and Ferguson. It bothers me that the stereotypical racist is a white person. Every racial group that holds a demographic in our country has the possibility to hold on to racist values, including (but not exclusively) those of white ethnicity. If race continues to be a high-profile issue in our country, it will be because people of all ethnicities are still holding on to the perceived racial structures that have shaped our society for such a long time. This is an example of a recurring theme we talked about in class: if men define a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. Because all ethnicities play into the customs and give them importance, all of the different racial structures we have built our society around will remain.

In class a few weeks ago, a student brought up the point that most abortion clinics are positioned in poor black neighborhoods by the “white elite” in order to “control the black population”. While there are abortion clinics in these areas, and it is possible that a white person made the decision on where the abortion clinics are operated, these clinics aim to provide an optional service and provide the owners with profit. The reason that abortion clinics are found in these poor residential areas is because the residents are likely to be most in need of the services the clinics provide affordably. You don’t find abortion clinics in wealthier areas because residents there would typically go to their personal doctor if the need for such a service arose. The placement of abortion clinics is not a matter of race, but simply one of supply and demand. We live in a capitalistic society, and the owners of abortion clinics are seeking an effective way to maximize profit. If these clinics were located away from lower-income neighborhoods, the residents might not be able to afford the transportation required to get to them. While it is theoretically possible for the “white elite” to place clinics in certain areas to control the population of a certain race, people use the clinic’s services voluntarily, and these services are available and used by all races, not just one.

Racism and segregation were both significant social problems throughout the last century in our country. However, they have been progressively contained through legislation and increasingly tolerant generations. Since the integration movement, children have been exposed to a variety of ethnicities and cultures, which has contributed to reducing the magnitude of racism in America. The US is seen as a melting pot of cultures and ethnic groups because of the high level of immigration. People from all over the world dream of living in the US to escape religious and social persecution, slavery, extreme poverty, and other harsh conditions. This dream becomes a reality for millions, which makes our country a home for thousands of languages and cultures. I believe that the recent surge in immigration has fostered tolerance among whites and other races and has facilitated peaceful cohabitation. While I think that racism has declined over the last 50 years, I don’t believe it will ever be completely eradicated. Though many people who lived in the segregation era are passing away, some have influenced their children and other family members to hold onto their own extreme beliefs. These individuals will keep perpetuating harmful patterns of the past. There will always be a select few from every ethnicity who can’t accept people who are different from them. This is an unfortunate reality. So, while our country can attempt to create equal opportunities for all regardless of skin color, it will be challenging to eliminate the stereotypes each person carries because of ingrained human tendencies and cultural upbringing.

Everyone, no matter their race, has a stereotype attached to them. Blacks are troublemakers, Asians are smart, whites are entitled, and Middle Easterners are violent. No matter how hard we try to detach these hurtful stigmas from ourselves, as long as we look like we belong to a certain group, they are here to stay. I have plenty of personal experiences with these judgments from high school. My county, Fort Bend, had recently been named the most diverse county in Texas. With a school of over 4,000 students, there were plenty of kids with different backgrounds and experiences than others. Students had their own cliques mostly based on their hobbies, but I noticed that except for a handful, most hung around with those of their same skin color. You could look around my school’s lunchroom and see a few people of Asian descent eating lunch with some white students, or some white students eating with others of African-American descent, but I never saw any Middle Easterners eating with anyone except other Middle Easterners. I was always extremely curious about it. I wondered if they didn’t have as much in common with other ethnicities or if others just didn’t accept them. I had really hoped the latter option wasn’t the case. I was never able to generate a conclusion though, because mostly, they kept to themselves.

I really enjoyed being a student in your class. It was different than any class I have ever taken or anticipate taking at Baylor. I didn’t feel as though I was struggling to pay attention in every lecture like in some of my other classes. You did an amazing job of keeping the class interested and engaged. The class felt as though our opinions were as important as yours, even though you are our superior. The readings were a great way to get us thinking about the lectures ahead of time and allowed us to form an opinion about the material. The journals did a good job of letting students blow off some steam that could sometimes be generated after a class of listening to opinions that differed from our own. I found myself plenty of times writing about someone’s comment they made in class or an idea that I had shortly after class ended. The journal was a way I could write whatever I wanted to without fear of someone’s feelings getting hurt. I’m glad you had the journals available to us. Daily quizzes were the best way to “test” us over the material because for science majors like myself, it is sometimes difficult to catch the small ideas within the sociologist’s assertion. It would have been really difficult to transfer what I had learned from lectures and readings into a scantron-test form. I had always been interested in what sociology was all about and I’m really glad I was able to take this class to finally figure it out. Thanks for a great semester!

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