Race Relations have Improved in America

If we look at the overwhelming evidence of race relations in America, we would show racism has improved. Race-related violence has declined along with race relations, over all since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word” Martin Luther King, Jr spoke those words as he accepted his Noble Peace Prize for his domineering leadership for racial justice.

Overtime racism has improved in America and it is inevitable. America is now multiracial, offers equal opportunity, and has complete desegregation.

In the United States racism has been around since the Seventeenth century, primarily due to the colonization of other countries moving into our land. As more races have taken the brunt of racism than others each race has gotten a taste of what racism is like. When Europeans arrived on North American and the plan to conquer land. Racism and hateful comments became a part of their lives. Europeans believed than the Native Americans needed to be civilized leading to genocide, mass murder, and stolen land. Native American traditions were wiped out leading to Indian reservation and BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) is an agency that of the federal government for Indian reservations. The BIA controlled all of their daily lives such as the reservation budget, the criminal justice system, and the schools. Coercive acculturation on Native Americans is consistent with the Blauner hypothesis, saying it was an assimilation effort by the United States to transform Native American culture to European-American culture. The assimilation effort as described above was the process by separate groups come to share a common culture and merge together socially. Under coercive acculturation is the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887. The IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) was a law passed to give Indians more autonomy. African Americans face many of the same challenges that Native Americans did. Starting in the Seventeenth century many of the royal African Americans were slaves, kidnapped from Africa. Whites thought they needed to be civilized and Christianized, while beating, whipping, torturing the slaves. Slaves were often raped and hanged by their owners if not following their orders. Although in 1865 slavery was prohibited and made illegal many African Americans still face racism in more subtly ways. The civil rights and Native rights movements of the 1960s and the 1970s changed America. Both campaigns were driven by justice, freedom, and respect. The Civil Rights Movement had an end goal of African Americans citizens being self-thriving and equal on all playing fields.

In the United States we view multiracialism as a part of our culture. Being able to take different minorities and mend them together is a huge accomplishment in the United States. “In the past most, cultures have misunderstood race; with the errors of logic and false ideas and it has left us with great tragedies in human history, mistreatment, and slavery” (Healey, Stepnick, O’Brein, pg.17, 2019). Multiracial people currently make up 6.9 percent of our population according to the U.S. census bureau. With having multiracialism, we benefit from having a melting pot of different cultures whether we like it or not, the U.S. has helped us deal with many cultures outside of the U.S. thus helping learn foreign languages and cultures.

Racial opportunities give minorities an equal opportunity as other minorities here in America, such as being president of the United States. In 2008, the United Stated celebrated a huge mile mark by electing the first African American president. As Americans, we achieved a degree of acceptance for racial diversity that seemed impossible. When public protestors gathered in August of 1963 to hear Martin Luther King give his I have a Dream Speech, no one thought an African American would once be running the country. Another example would be minorities can be the first of many to be in interracial marriages. They can marry outside of their races and no one will now judge these days.

Every race is able to work the same jobs and go to the same schools, whereas racial minorities were separate until the 1970’s. In 1939, WPA (the Works Progress Administration) was an American New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled men who would do public work regardless of color. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 with Title VII containing a prohibition of discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race was passed. “This law provided all minorities to apply and work for most jobs at the same playing field as any other minority without discrimination for their skin color, their education, national origin, religion, or sex.” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). In 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education, “the Supreme Court outlawed segregated public education facilities for blacks and whites at the state level. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 superseded all state and local laws requiring segregation” (McBride 2006, PBS).

Browning of America has become an epidemic and will be an even bigger one according to Frey. The browning thesis implies whites will lose their dominant status gradually as Latinos and Asian American groups grow, thus causing the power to be in the given to the Latinos and Asian American groups and not the white which gives balance. Some theorists see the loss of whites being in power as a negative, due to Latinos being unwilling to learn the culture and language that is in the United States. Other sociologists offer a different opinion

We see that racism and race related violence has declined since the Civil Rights Act and the Black Power Movement due to multiracialism bringing culture back to America, giving minorities equal opportunities such as interracial marriages, and complete desegregation at work or school. As Martin Luther King had refused to believe in segregation and that truth would one day show itself, we now have come together as a country. As Martin Luther King once said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

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