Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

Racism In America

Before delving into the deep abyss that is the history and prevalence of racism in the United States of America, you must first ask yourself, what exactly is racism? Who do you consider racists? Are all of the racists you thought of the same race? Could you be racist? The term racism or racist has gotten to the point where it is thrown around and used very loosely. By definition, it is to bear animosity and/or prejudice towards other races. So it should apply to everyone, no matter their race. Unfortunately, due to the history of the Caucasian race asserting an ill-conceived sense of dominance upon other races, they are often the only ones that are singled out as racists. Racism is most common in the African-American and Caucasian relationship as it has deep historical roots there. Those roots are still felt rather strongly among Americans as fifty-six percent of white Americans displayed explicit racial prejudice in a Racial Attitudes Test1. This essay is a culmination of my research into the history, advances, and the existence of racism today.

In five years, the year 2019 will mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the very first African slaves to step foot on American (back then it was British) soil and set the gears in motion that would power the mechanical juggernaut that is institutionalized racism that would last for centuries. They first landed in Jamestown, Virginia as part of a trade by Jamestown colonists, who gave food to a Dutch slave trader who was running low on supplies in exchange for 20 of the Dutchmans African-American slaves. The colonists found that this basically free labor was a

Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

fantastic method to maximize their tobacco production, which was an enormously popular cash crop at the time, and minimize their expenses at the same time. Of course what is not wellknown is that African were not the first slaves of the colonies. Native Americans were actually the first people to be used by the colonists as slaves but were found unfavorable because of their poor resistance to the European diseases, so they just killed them instead. But the new African slaves were disease resistant and were much better at the physically demanding labor of agriculture. In the 17th and 18th centuries, approximately 650,000 slaves had been imported to North America alone.2 The colonies brand of slavery was actually unique compared to the rest of the world in the view that it was based purely on race. Once the Native American slaves had been decided to be obsolete early on, almost every slave was an African-American and almost every African-American was a slave. This is the beginning of this institutionalized racism that we see today. Whites had made slaves inferior to themselves and made all of the inferior ones black. This association became something engrained into the average Caucasian psyche and lasted four hundred years. The rise of slavery and the emergence of racism went hand in hand; there is no doubt that they fed each other. The rationalization for treating a fellow human so poorly was to make them inhuman. This view is best portrayed by Scottish philosopher David Hume who said that Africans have the intelligence of an orangutan.2 Hume, who was a fierce preacher of individual liberty, also wrote this passage in his Of National Characters essay:

I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. [T]here are NEGROE slaves

Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

dispersed all over EUROPE, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho' low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In JAMAICA, indeed, they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but 'tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly.3 The beginnings of this racist ideology are clear. David Hume, from whom the founding fathers used ideas of personal liberties, seemed to pass on his institutionalized racism along to the Land of the Free as well. This racism ran rampant for centuries with the separation of races after slavery was abolished as well as the Jim Crow laws which aided in keep the black voters silenced, and therefore keeping pro-African-American legislators out of office. Many would like to think that with the great success of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the Black Panther Party to gain civil rights for the African-American community that racism is nearly eradicated for the United States. This idea of racism nearly being extinct is simply foolish.

Racism is alive and well in todays society, it just is not as overt and explicit as it was thirty years ago. One recent example is the stop and frisk program carried out by the NYPD in the past few years. African-Americans and Hispanics made up eighty percent of those who were stopped and eighty-five percent of those African-Americans and Hispanics were searched as well. In the same program, only five percent of Caucasians stopped were searched4. This is a perfect example of police racially profiling people. There should be no excuses for a disparity such as this between races as far as suspicions based on nothing more than skin color. Fortunately, the United States government has met racial inequality with swift justice recently

Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

and suspended this obviously biased program. There are even more instances as well, such as drug arrests. African-Americans make up thirteen percent of the United States population and fourteen percent of its habitual drug users. Yet for some reason African-Americans make up thirty-seven percent of drug-related arrests4. So, even though racism is not as blatant as it once was with groups like the Ku Klux Klan, if you go by a lot of these demographic statistics you see a huge disparity between blacks and whites. This racism is not necessarily the persons fault either; it is created by media and stereotypes that we are exposed to as we grow up. These misconceptions are planted in our head from the beginning and it is only possible to be rid of it by educating yourself and breaking this cycle.

The United States has still made astounding advances in the area of civil rights even with all that is still wrong. These advances have not only been for minorities but they also include woman and homosexuals are soon to be included in this category as well. The United States has gone from treating minorities as less than human to electing them to the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and even the Presidency. Barack Obama was huge as he managed to mobilize the largest amount of African-American voters in American history. Proportionally speaking, the African-American community turned out in bigger numbers than any other race for the 2012 Presidential Election, even Caucasians5. Statistics like voter turnout are critical demographically because that is the only way you can achieve legislation that truly benefits everyone and make sure no one race is in power.

Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

Racism is almost a hereditary disease that has afflicted the roots of the United States all the way back to before the country was even formulated. It has been implanted in everyone for generations by family, popular culture, and mass media. To defeat this scourge we must educate ourselves on the statistics and get out and interact with people. If we do not go out and actually interact with diverse people then we just preach a theory we never practice. In order to live up to the idea of American Exceptionalism we must hold ourselves to a higher standard and transcend these aesthetic differences.

Dillon Bannigan

English 1102

4/10/14

Works Cited 1. Politi, Daniel. "Poll: Majority of Americans Are Racist." Slate Magazine. Matt Turck, 27 Oct. 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. 2. "Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789." Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789. InnerCity.org, n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2014. 3. Doris, Glen. Making Excuses for Hume: Slavery, Racism and a Reassessment of David Humes Thoughts on Personal Liberty. Academia.edu. Academia, n.d. Web. 4. "11 Facts About Racial Discrimination." DoSomething.org. DoSomething, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.United States. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Facts about Race/color Discrimination. Vol. 1. Washington, DC: United States Government, 1999. Print. 5. "Newsroom." Blacks Voted at a Higher Rate than Whites in 2012 Election A First, Census Bureau Reports. United States Census, n.d. Web.