“‘Nigger’ is a completely acceptable term like ‘Cracker’ is for a white person,” he said and she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. That’s racist, she thought but didn’t comment, they were her friends, but she never heard them talk like that.
“Black people are scum and you know who agrees with me? Other black people. I watched a documentary on the history channel and you know who shipped slaves off to the Americas? Other black people,” she recited. He couldn’t believe what was said but couldn’t refute it. If someone of the same race agrees to that statement and willingly sold their own, what argument is against it? How can I refute that even though it sounds wrong? Since when were you like this?
“They’re slant eyes,” she said and the other woman couldn’t understand. You aren’t normally racist, I didn’t know you were at least.
Provided by the United States Census Bureau on July 1, 2015, the percentage of the Hispanic or Latino population is 17.6 percent in the U.S., Black population is 13.3 percent, the Asian population is 5.6 percent, American Indian and Alaska Native is 1.2 percent and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander is 0.2 percent. Minorities are 37.9 percent of the population and the not Hispanic or Latino White is 61.6 percent.
According to this report, the population in the U.S. is 321,418,820: 56,569,712 are Hispanic or Latino; 42,748,703 is Black; 17,999,454 is Asian; 3,857,026 is American Indian and Alaska Native; and 642,838 is Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. 197,993,993 people in the United States are non Hispanic or Latino White.
In the Bureau of Justices Statistics report on prisoners in 2013, there are 1,516,876 total sentenced prisoners: 21.9 percent Hispanic, 332,200; 36.2 percent Black, 549,100; 8.6 percent Other, 130,000 and 33.3 percent White, 505,600.
In terms of the percent of the general population in 2015 and the prison statistics in 2013, 58 percent of the Hispanic population are considered prisoners, 1.2 percent of the Black population and 0.25 percent of the White population.
For every one white person, 4.8 black people and 2.3 Hispanic people are considered prisoners.
For U.S. presidents, only 1 in 44 is black, 2.2 percent. In Congress, according to Pew Research Center, minorities make up 17%; 91 in 535. In terms of Fortune 100 CEOs, provided by Forbes, 6% of CEOs are minorities and 94% are White; 6 in 100.
In Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, he spoke of the segregation in schools on Oct. 30 in terms of Hispanic and black students. “Six times as likely to be in high-poverty schools.” He then went into depth, “Funding tends to follow white people around, [...] If you just assign kids to their neighborhood school and their neighborhood is segregated, you will have a segregated school.”
In the episode, it also featured a black girl who stated, "But when we go in contact with these white children, or should I say Caucasian, they don't know how to act because they believe that they are better than us. And we don't know how to act because we believe they are better than us."
Many think that because America has an African American President it means racism does not exist; it does and as a country, it needs to be fixed.
There are also many times where a person does not even know they are racist at all, which someone can get an educated guess as to whether they are or not from the Implicit Association Test by Harvard.
Exposure to the disparity is chief among what needs to happen because humans tend to favor the experiences, objects and personality types they are familiar with and have a positive remembrance of. If a person is not exposed to someone of a different color, ethnicity or culture, then they most likely will not see them favorably-- there is not an experience created with someone different in that respect.
Mostly, people stick with what they know and what they are good with-- if one is good at Mathematics, then majoring in Mathematics or Physics is probably where they will go. If someone is more comfortable with English, then a Literature or English major is probably the way they will go. But, the genius of the opposite always needs to be appreciated.
The famous “Opposites attract” line is untrue: the more one has in common with another, they more likely they will be closer. Thus the common and familiar go together: that is how people are attracted to one another, however, this is not how the public can go through life.
For one, it ruins life for the minorities as illustrated in the prison, education and leader statistics along with the interview demonstrating that minorities' self-value can go down as well. Two, being exposed to someone with different ideas is a benefit. Increased communication between disparities is how a nation can decrease discrimination and prejudice; it is how we can create exposure and experience so there is familiarity. It is also a learning experience so one can see more sides of reality.
And the only way to do this is to also recognize there is racism and that it is a problem.
America needs to accept that racism is still a part of its culture and move forward to eliminate it. Deciding that just because the nation has an African American President means that we are over it is not the way to go. We need to continue to be educated in the differences that separate us so that we may turn them into our strengths. We can never ‘settle’, we must always stride to learn about about each other and never not communicate.
