Rivera De La Vega 1

Joseph Louis Rivera De La Vega

Dr. Kathy

English 2010

22 February 2019

Since the beginning of time, the white man has been the dominant race and gender.

Notice how I said a man and the color white. For some reason, men have always considered

themselves more dominant than women. It might be due to their thought of “physical

appearance.” As for color, the Spanish came and conquered Mesoamerica, the Aztecs were

convinced that the white man was a God. We can take it back to the 1800s when the black man

was a slave, or up until 1964 when the black man was forbidden from stepping foot in a white

area.

Looking into an article called ‘discrimination’, by Charles C. Jackson, it shows that

discrimination has been very big since the beginning of time. People are racially, religiously, and
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culturally discriminated, as well as discriminated upon gender. There are two different types of

discrimination. The first one is legal discrimination, and it happens when the law upholds

discrimination. The second type is Institutional. Institutional discrimination is when someone is

being suppressed, treated unequal, or discriminated on the color of their skin and gender.

It’s very sad that discrimination is indeed real. People are oppressed daily because of

their financial status. With the healthcare system that we have today, people are put in a position

to decide if they should go to the hospital or not depending on their wages. That person is being

discriminated upon their wage, and the rich are being favored because all laws are shown to go

their way. There is a study from Harvard that shows 45,000 deaths are due to the lack of health

insurance. Many people link poverty similar to that of a death sentence, and that’s because poor

people tend to live a lot less than a rich person. The government has isolated poor people from

success; not everyone gets the same path or road to doing something great.

A study shows that since 9-11, people have actually been very discriminative to Muslims.

They label them as terrorists and other wrongful names. This should be an eye-opener to all of

us, society is labeling a whole group for the actions of one person. If we labeled everyone off the

actions of one person then we would all be deemed as something horrifying. Still today, Muslims

all over the country are being oppressed and discriminated upon.

Moving on to a different predicament, women have always been seen as second to a man.

For every single dollar that a man makes, a woman gets paid 88 cents. Unfortunately, the pay

rate goes even lower depending on your ‘status’, or the color of your skin. Women are now

taking a stand against all discrimination that is set forth against them. Women are also being

discriminated for their own choices, they’re getting some objectionable feelings thrown at them

for choosing what to do with their own body.

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The most frustrating part of my research was that minorities are not given the fair trials

they deserve in court. Tough on crime prosecutors, they usually tend to believe that minorities

are subject to violence, crimes, and drugs. They don’t like the thought of second chances, and

they don’t want to believe a minorities voice. When you have a white judge, a tough on crime

prosecutor, and a white jury who loves their police, it’s going to be a very tough trial to even

prove the defendant’s innocence. The wrongful conviction rate against minorities is pretty high,

and that’s only the minorities that have been recorded as wrongful convictions, there could

possibly be more. In 2016, a study found that the 1,900 exonerations were African-American,

minorities in other words. This means that 1,900 African-Americans were innocent,

unfortunately, they were framed wrong and it was most likely because of the color of their skin.

African-Americans are facing a very twisted system that is going against them in many ways.

As for immigrants, the President is completely oblivious to the fact that no undocumented

person comes with the idea of having a kid and gaining citizenship through that. It actually takes

24 years for the parents of an “anchor baby” to gain citizenship. Undocumented immigrants are

being completely misjudged and discriminated upon their status. They are currently getting their

children yanked out of their hands and put in cages. Those kids are currently facing poor,

depressing, and traumatic moments in their young lives. Many of these kids have died from

issues that wouldn’t have happened if they were in their parent’s custody, for example,

dehydration. Unfortunately, dehydration has been the cause of death for many of these kids, and

we’re aware that this is how our society is. In conclusion, It’s up to us if we want change or not.
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WORK CITED:

Alana Lentin (SLCC Database). Racism: A Beginner’s Guide. 2008.

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=2e49077a-6f57-

4b3a-97b7-4b101c367cee%40sdc-v-

sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=910838&db=nlebk. February 25,

2019.

David Cecere. Harvard Gazette. September 17, 2009.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2009/09/new-study-finds-45000-deaths-annually-linked-

to-lack-of-health-coverage/. February 25, 2019.

John Wagner. Washington Post. April 23, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-

politics/wp/2016/04/23/poverty-is-a-death-sentence-sanders-declares-during-baltimore-

stop/?utm_term=.7fa8533e2725. February 25, 2019.

Charles C. Jackson. Research Starters (SLCC Database). 2017.

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libprox1.slcc.edu:2048/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=21b8e55c-59e9-

4ebd-8c58-

395cca145249%40sessionmgr4007&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=96397280&

db=ers. February 25, 2019.

KTVU. FOX KTVU. March 27, 2018. http://www.ktvu.com/news/study-in-california-women-

make-88-cents-for-every-dollar-men-earn. February 25, 2019.

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Samuel R Gross. Race and Wrongful Convictions. March 7, 2017.

http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pd

f/. February 27, 2019.