Racial InequalityEssay Preview: Racial InequalityReport this essayBlack Americans have a history rooted in the struggle for equality and recognition as members of the American society. Over time, since the creation of the Constitution, blacks have continued to search for their role in America and have gained some formal standards for the black race. Although at the framing of the Constitution, blacks were not given the regard as citizens or even whole people, time progressed and gave way to opportunities to acquire legal aid in the crusade for racial equality. With the ability to utilize the court system, its formalities, and ultimately its power to enact national laws, blacks were able to win civil rights litigations, thus making advancements as a race.
Black Americans allegiance to the court system represents their lack of economic and political power and influence (Bell, p.59). From the perspective of Durkheim, the court represents a ritualistic institution that blacks, as well as the American population regard with a since of sacredness(p.63). The court has an underlying function which is to maintain the structure of society thus creating solidarity. And though the major court decisions regarding the treatment of blacks were not the collective sentiment during those times, when the world view is reviewed, with the rise of communism, the idea of a free nation would be impossible with a nation partially practicing human enslavement (Bell, p. 69).
The legacy of slavery and the Constitutional Contradiction are still adversities for black Americans today. With regards to exceptions given to blacks, the need for or the existence of affirmative action constitute justifiable reason to believe that the legacy still exists. In keeping with this sentiment, the lack of property ownership by black Americans uphold the Constitutional Contradiction. With laws made to protect for property owners and their rights, blacks, at the time of the Constitutions inception were not regarded in the makings of this document. Blacks were not property owners but were in fact property. The use of affirmative action depicts a country still not capable of granting opportunities to individuals on the basis of clear capability.
Bells most compelling argument regarding the attainment of racial equality actually came from Geneva and highlighted allowing schools to remain segregated. Although I personally feel that this is not a realistic picture of American society or what makes up the work force, Genevas argument held valid points. The fact that the court would even allow ten years to pass before the enforcement of desegregation showed the lack of will to comply (Bell, p.112). Black students were met with violence and other psychological factors that could have played on their performance in schools. However, if more regard was given to really making the schools equal in regards to funding and facilities, black students could have received top-notch education that was geared towards their particular learning styles and aimed at ensuring their future success. Bell contended that her position failed to recognize that whites would continue to allocate themselves the best resources regardless of segregation or desegregation (Bell, p.118). His argument stated that it would be hard to attain much more than what was already being allotted to black schools.
Improved education is one avenue that I feel could lead to racial equality in the United States. From personal experience, I have observed that in inner cities trades as oppose to careers are highlighted as the way to survive as an adult. Students are not reinforced with the belief in attaining the highest standard of living. The careers that gross the most amount of finances are those that are outside of the trade arena. These are the positions that require ample science and math skills. However, a sizeable proportion of blacks reside in areas in which the schools available to their children are lacking the adequate materials and even qualified teachers that want to teach in these areas of low academic performance and standards. Thus the level of education attained by black children is not sufficient enough to compete with their white counterparts that have
n. Race-based disparities in wealth and income are a direct result of the policies of the last three presidents, who were responsible chiefly for the welfare state. Obama is proposing a “job-creating agenda.” One is to increase welfare by raising the minimum wage, a measure of how much more private sector and labor-intensive jobs are required to provide for people with low incomes and are typically not considered economically significant jobs for the first 10 years after their first job. The other is to create jobs so that, as soon as the wage is raised, people can begin to produce more work, and then wages will be paid for, which will have more of a role to play in the economy as a whole. The idea, says Dworkin, is that “we really need to see the jobs that we’ve already put in use and we’re doing that because we’re making more money than we have in 50 years.” While the White House has not set a date for when it can start implementing its program, the concept of “job-creating” has been suggested by the Cato Institute, which has urged states to increase tax credits for low- and middle-income taxpayers. In an e-mail, David Brooks, a conservative Washington consultant with Brookings, said, “Even though jobs are still scarce in our country, we will begin to build that infrastructure and that infrastructure is necessary to maintain a healthy economy.” The administration proposed a number of policies including increasing the minimum wage, eliminating the estate tax, increasing federal income tax credits under the Earned Income Tax Credit and expanding Social Security Disability Insurance. Brooks said “a very effective job-creating economic program for the American people is to begin with a set of programs that pay enough and keep more people on benefits, which is not an option for blacks. . . . There could be some other areas where the federal income tax credit in the $20 threshold can provide a net benefit. . . . The idea has the potential to be more effective if [the] federal government decides to spend money on that work and provide that work as it would if the federal government did it first.” The new program would require a plan that provides both a plan to support a working lifetime and a plan for a long-term caretaker on long-term disability. The plan would encourage states to start paying for this work and establish some level of social security payments but also give states control over how they pay for it. The bill also proposes a plan “to put more money in federal coffers to provide our communities with affordable food, shelter, and support for our low-income children.” Brooks said, “The most important thing here is we are talking about a national plan that goes a long way to ensuring that people stay at home,” to which he referred to the work of African American-Americans such as W. G. Wray, who was arrested and prosecuted for his civil rights work in the 1960s. He became a successful lawyer and president of the South Asian Society in the 1960s, but his legacy is not as widely remembered for his role as a civil rights activist in this area, as in much of the nation. He was also one of the late founding members of the NAACP who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott of 1963. He was also one of the two black leaders of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1960s.
I don’t think we all want something like