Racial Discrimination in American History Essay

Racial distinction contaminated the inbuilt nation since its very inception. Racial tensions and problems remained a study dilemma of the Statesn direct. Stanley M. Elkins illustrative work Slavery A Problem in American institutional and Intellectual Life illustrated the psychological rig of harsh conventionalism of buckle downry. He says that in the South brought into being a typical pitch shockingness personality that was comm provided known as Sambo. Sambo de n champions to a personality simulacrum that was characterized by childlike behavior.This infantilism (as Mr. Elkins c eithers it) was a result of coercive negation of individualist rights and last powerlessness. He march on comp ares it with Nazi concentration camp, where harsh treatment and absolute powerlessness over either action had reduced the Jews to infantilism. Although American muniment is littered with example of racial discrimination at the social and political level nevertheless following examp le manifests different facets of American racial problem.Louis Hughes (1897) show pernicious kind of racial discrimination in his muniment Thirty Years A Slave From Bondage to Freedom when wrote that slave whipping was a not barely a punitive nib plainly it was also do a business. He wrote Whipping was done at these markets, or traders yards, altogether the era. People who lived in the city of Richmond would send their slaves here for penalisation. When any one cute a slave whipped he would send a note to that effect with the servant to the trader. Any petty offense on the objet dart of a slave was sufficient to subject the offender to this brutal treatment.Owners who affected outlying(prenominal)ming and refinement preferred to send a servant to the yard for punishment to inflicting it themselves. (pp 8-9) Dred Scott case (Scott v. Sandford, 60 U. S. (19 How. ) 393 (1856). ) has its peculiar importance in the racial history of America. Scott sued in federal official co urt to be affirmed free. A divided up compulsory Court (7/2) ruled out his sue petition as declared that he had not right to sue in federal court because he was not a U. S. citizen. Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the loudness opinion.Taney based his ruling on the actualities that free blacks were not citizens because blacks were oft debarred from militia service. Taney and his allied counterparts further based their stopping point on the assumption that pilot program American social community included only those who, at that time of American independence, were recognized as the spate or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been shadowy by the English Government and who declared their independence, and fagd the powers of Government to obtain their rights by force of arms. (Dred vs. Scott. ) Whatever were the legal and constitutional intricacies involved in the decision, this ruling made mockery of the American value of freedom, bear uponity and fraternity . This decision further produced a huge chasm between the white American and total darknesss that until now exists and haunts the American society more than ever in various educate forms and shapes. Residential segregation is common to daylight as it was in the betimes days of American society as Blacks reside in develop and underprivileged ghettos.The sole reason for that is that economically they are not puff up off to buy a house in some ripe residential area or at least rent it. Until the archetypical half of the 20th century, many trade unions routinely debarred blacks from membership snap off schools were common in many cities crosswise America. Within the armed forces, for example, blacks served in segregate units or, in the case of the Navy, were virtually excluded. alone optimism grew and struggle for an argument action continued. Another cardinal moment came when Supreme Court awarded separate but equal status to Afro-American in Plessy vs.Ferguson (1896). J ustice total heat Brown wrote the majority decision That the Separate Car Act does not fight with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery is too clear for argument A statute which implies merely a legal distinction between the white and glum races a distinction which is founded in the color of the cardinal races, and which must ever exist so long as white men are distinguished from the other race by color has no angle of inclination to destroy the legal equality of the two racesThe object of the Fourteenth Amendment was undoubtedly to implement the absolute equality of the two races before the law, but in the nature of things it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to impose social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon cost unsatisfactory to either. Justice John Harlan manifested great prudence in his fend note. He wrote Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tol erates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the lawIn my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott case This did not end the Black plight as Racialism was not only institutional but psychological and it crept into the very intellectual and psychological level of American whites. Sociological patterns i. e. values and traditions, were established in way to comfort hatred for the colored people. Palton (1954) is of the view that American racialism has two major manifestations employment and trapping.He provides a detailed and first hand accounts of this housing discrimination. He depicted how white community outcasts those whites who tried to sell the shoes to colored people. He elaborated that these white Realtors are not prompt by any altruism but financial gains are the only factors that compels them to sell their property to Black co mmunity. He writes In 1934 the Federal hold Administration regarded itself as a business organization, and regarded Negro occupancy as harmful from a business point of view.In 1937 it actually promulgated a model race-restrictive covenant. In the words of Mr. Loren Miller, of Los Angeles, one of the most all-powerful Negro fighters against the covenant, the FHA sowed race-restrictive covenants through the country far and wide. The FHA dropped the model covenant in 1949, and declared it would no longer insure loans in new developments where on that point were covenants. . . . (Paton, 1954) Parton further asserted in 50s that By now I assume that it is an incontrovertible fact that segregation is dying but subtle forms of discrimination continued.Although state and federal laws hankered after an equal status for colored people but institutional and social practices presented a different scenario i. e. dichotomy of values in idea and real world. Roosevelt (1943) has raised certain fundamental questions intimately same problem i. e. the ideals for which civil war was fought and the practical attainment of those ideals. In that war we succeeded in establishing our unity. We would be one nation and not two and we said that all the people in our nation should enjoy equal rights and privileges, but in our hearts we never really believed what we said.(Roosevelt, 1943) Same views were depicted by Birmingham Sunday, a song by Richard Farina when four children were murdered in Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. It says On Birmingham Sunday the line of merchandise ran like wine, And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. (Carawan, 1990) The capital of Alabama Bus Boycott was a socio-political protest against the policy of racial segregation and discrimination campaign in the public transport service of Montgomery city, Alabama in 1955. It lasted for one completely year starting at December 5, 1955 and ending at Decenmer21, 1956.The sentiments of the Afro-Am erican community were cooled down by a United States Supreme decision that declared segregation in public transport as unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott cast deep imprints U. S. history and render the Black attractionship with an impetus to carry on their civil rights struggle. It had implications that reached far beyond the desegregation of public buses. Luther King established himself as the leader of a bailiwick stature. The protest boosted the Civil Rights front man and created a mass awareness about the struggle of Afro-American community and highlighted their pathos and miseries.It further provided confidence to the Black people that they can win their rights by invariant struggle. In the words of King We have gained a new wizard of dignity and destiny. We have discovered a new and powerful sleevenon-violent resistance. Another manifestation of racial discrimination existed in the armed forces. Afro-American community remained a vital part of U. S. Armed for ces and participated in all(prenominal) war the United States fought on domestic and/or foreign soil. But it is also a fact that Afro-American soldiers remained a part of segregated units and were tasked to do unskilled donkey work.In the perspective of World contend II, President Truman issued an Executive Order 9981, which consented equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin. This pronouncement was great but black servicemen continued to come across profound discrimination. Much like the wider American society, the U. S. armed forces observed abounding racial incidents in the 1960s. The Camp Lejeune Incident is one of them. Camp Lejeune nautical Corps camp in Central North Carolina and housed about 42,000 soldiers personnel.In late 1960s, 14% of troops stationed at the camp were Afro-American.. On the horrible night of July 20, 1969, racial tension aroused when a black marine attempte d to cut into a white dancing with a black woman marine. (U. S. Government mental picture Office, December 15, 1969). after one and half hour, a white army personnel entered the unify and shouted that he had been attacked by a mob of Afro-American marines. This sparked the whole situation and within next half an hour 15 Black marines injured and one, Corporal Edward E.Blankston, was dead of massive head injuries. Another such(prenominal) incident is The U. S. S. Kitty Hawk Incident. All these incident provides a super and brief synopsis of racialism in American history but it remains a fact that although there are various individual achievements on the part on black Americans like Christina Rocca and Colin Powell hold important role of Secretary of State Clarence Thomas held the highest judicial authority but discrimination in many forms is also a central part of the African American experience.Joe R Feagin in his book Racist America Roots, Current Realities And Future Preparatio ns describes clearly that systematic racism is about general experienceBlack American and other people of color often experience the world differently from White Americans This is true in every aspect of African-American life.ReferencesAlan Paton, The Negro In the North, Colliers, 29 October 1954, 7072, 7475, 77, 7980. Amending Interstate Commerce Act (Segregation of Passengers), Hearings before the direction on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives, 83rdCongress, 2nd Session, May 1214, 1954. Washington, DC U. S. Government Printing Office, 1954, 3955. Burns, Stewart. Daybreak of Freedom The Montgomery Bus Boycott. The University of North Carolina Press. 1997 Carawan. Candie. Sing for Freedom The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through its songs. Bethlehem. 1990. pp. 122-123. Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Inquiry into the Disturbances at Marine Corps Base, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina,. on July 20, 1969 (Washington, D. C. U. S. Gove rnment Printing Office, December 15, 1969), p.5056. Elkins, Stanley. Slavery A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. University of Chicago Press. 1959. Feagin, Joe R. Racist America roots, current realities, and future reparations. spick-and-span York Routledge, 2000. Hughes, Louis. Thirty Years A Slave From Bondage to Freedom. Milwaukee. South stance Printing Company. 1897. Justice Henry Billings Brown, Majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, consolidation and the Supreme Court , ed. Benjamin Munn Ziegler (Boston D. C. Heath and Company, 1958) 50-51.