In King’s, I Have a Dream speech and Malcom X’s, Coming to an Awareness of Language, both speakers express their ideas and viewpoints on racial inequality. Throughout history the African American race has had to fight for the same equal rights as the “white man”. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X were two influential leaders that fought for equal liberties until the days that they were killed, making important impacts on the lives of many Americans. These two pieces of literature have many similarities, but also some differences. In this essay I will share things that I found similar and different with these writings.
Sadly, some individuals believe that another person is less human than them. Some of the most common causes of racism are skin, color, language, customs or place of birth. Racial prejudice deals with terrible and hostile pre-judgments, opinions, and actions towards a race. Moreover, racism has some devastating effects. It can destroy a person’s self esteem, community cohesion and even creates divisions in society.
This racism comes in many forms, blatant and not so obvious. A more obvious form of racism takes the form of something like name calling using the historically vulgar “n word.” Less deliberate forms of racism come disguised as things such as stereotypes. As a black male myself, I see and hear many stereotypes today about my race that people seem to think contribute to the obvious state of “lower class” that the African American seems to be in, in 21st century America. Words like “laziness,” “unintelligence,” “felons” are all words that I have heard used in stereotypical ways in regards to African-Americans. Sadly, these generalizations exist, and while a black man can do wrong just like a white man can, I firmly believe that it is a series of events, starting with slavery, which has placed the black race in its seemingly unfortunate position even years later in today’s society.
Stand Up! As we look throughout history, one could argue, that we couldn’t find a more appalling and unjust act as that of slavery. Slavery played a major part of not only history but of an innumerable amount of American people. In David Walker’s “Appeal in Four Articles” and Frederick Douglass’s “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”, two men of African American descent struggle with the reality of slavery and the cruel results and effect it had on people like themselves. Walker was a free black man living in Boston who had a unique view of slavery.
Racism in Native Son “Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable” (Fredrickson). Racism affects all types of people- from African descent, Asian, Latin, and even European. When using the phrase “that’s racist”, the most common race that people think it is aimed towards is African-American. African-Americans have had it hard since the slave era. After dealing with the hardships and finally escaping those times, they had to deal with racism still in the early 20th century.
Black Americans were publically beaten, frightened, and even killed (Magar, 2010). These practices did not stop until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination against race among many other things. Today stereotypes continue to create discrimination but not to the levels of the early 1900s. Everyone needs to remember that Black Americans have more than 400 years of stereotypes to overcome. African Americans have many conflicts and struggles to deal with.
In the absence of detail, stereotyping in many situations allow us to arrive at a general conclusion of these groups. Although we may innocently generate and be responsible for stereotypes, it can, and does, often lead to unfair inequity and discrimination when the stereotype is inauspicious. By stereotyping, we take for granted that a person or group has some definite distinctiveness. Television, books, comic strips, music, and theater are all copious starting places of stereotyped characters. Stereotypes also progress out of trepidation of persons from minority groups.
Black campaigners tried to use the fact that they fought in the war to gain respect and equality. However, there was still a very high number of racism in the southern states and the number of lynchings increased after the war. This shows that even after the effort the black put into helping in the war, they were still classed as second class citizens and not respected in the same way as
-Racism: found almost anywhere that visible minorities can be found. Many people are quiet racists, and keep their racist thoughts to themselves, but a lot of people act on their thoughts, and say cruel things or physically hurt people because of their race (example: KKK). -Homophobia: homophobia is probably one of the worst kinds of discrimination, and it is found absolutely everywhere. In some countries people are persecuted for their sexuality, which is completely wrong. People are bullied everyday for being homosexual, or even bisexual, and sometimes this bullying leads to self-harm or even suicide.
Moreover, my black friends told me that if a whit people called you “Nigger” that’s mean they are racists, but if a black people call you that it is a complement between brothers. Back in Saudi Arabia we respect and treat all colored people the same. There, I never know the real meaning of the word racism or felt it. However, here in the US I see racism in the people’s eyes, in some whit people eyes because I am colored and from general Americans because I am Moslem. In conclusion, people have been created in