Final Draft

Legacy of racism

Shadelly Guzman

HUM 370

September 28, 2017

Legacy of racism

Introduction

Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, and antagonism that is directed to a person or a group of individuals based on the belief that one's culture is superior to the other (McConahay, 1986). Racism started when races that felt superior to the other and thus started enslaving the other who were viewed as inferior races. As such, there are those races that felt they were more important than others and as such, they had the monopoly of freedom and other basic human rights over the other races. Racism has been there for years and still exists in the contemporary world. As explained in this paper racism has been there, and its legacy still lives.

Dating back to the 18th Century, the economy of the United States greatly depended on slave trade which made the trade become part of the culture to the extent that it was immortalized and romanticized in films. Individuals, especially those from the African race were subjected to public lynching, and as such, there were 3, 883 people were lynched in the US south between 1989 and 1940 according to World council of Churches where 80% of these people were African American. This brings out the social, economic as well as physical problems that the African Americans were subjected to by their race, (Hood, 2002).

In the current world, racism is still an issue that affects the United States which is because the United States is the most racially diverse nation. Taking a look at the different races in the United States, one still finds significant disparities between the different races with the African Americans being at a higher risk of being impoverished and as such subjected to a low quality of life as opposed to their white counterparts, (LaVeist et al., 2000). African Americans earn only a 62% of the median of what white earns, which is the lowest in the country. US southerners are more likely to be uneducated, poor, unemployed and incarcerated in general but are even one for the people of color who are more likely to be living near an industry producing cancer-causing toxins or a toxic waste dump (LaVeist et al., 2000).

The challenges of racism encroach even into the health sectors as those races that are considered to be inferior are not given equal consideration with the superior races. Health is a valuable asset to every human on the planet, but racism has made it difficult for most people to be responsible for their health (LaVeist et al., 2000). However, the minority races in the United States continues to face challenges associated with access to quality healthcare even though the healthcare industry has greatly changed and improved over the years as far as quality is concerned. Even the 21st century, the minority races in the US are still denied access to quality care which is a human right, as the doctors still focus on racial profiling.

In 1947 penicillin was used to cure diseases like syphilis (Norgaard et al., 201l). Before the discovery of the cure, medical researchers coordinated with Tuskegee institutes in Alabama where tests were conducted on human subjects to find the cure for syphilis. Unfortunately, the tests were carried out on poor place individuals to find a cure for the sexually transmitted diseases (Norgaard et al., 201l). Even though the subjects of the experiments were promised free healthcare, the researchers did not meet their end of the dealing resulting in the spread of the disease among the black community which in turn brought more deaths to the African American population.

Conclusion

Racism dates back into history, and it is, therefore, necessary to look at the effect that this had on the community and the nation as a whole while focusing on finding and effective solutions to the challenge. It is therefore important for the government to ensure that proper measures are put in place to deal wi\th the issue to realize equality among the different races in the United States and the rest of the world, (Norgaard et al., 201l. Moreover, participation in government programs should be purely optional especially to the minority races other than forcing them into medical programs that only make their already bad situation turn to worse.

References

Hood, R. G. (2002). The death penalty: A worldwide perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

McConahay, J. B. (1986). Modern racism, ambivalence, and the modern racism scale.

LaVeist, T. A., Nickerson, K. J., & Bowie, J. V. (2000). Attitudes about racism, medical mistrust, & satisfaction with care among African American & white cardiac patients. Medical Care Research and Review, 57(1_suppl), 146-161.

Norgaard, K. M., Reed, R., & Van Horn, C. (2011). A continuing legacy: Institutional racism, hunger, and nutritional justice on the Klamath. MIT Press.