Joseph Abely

Dr. Drown

English 123

15 April 2019

Will Racism End?

In both cases regarding race each side seem to come an agreeance on the fact that they are not treated well. For an example on the Whiteness Project Alfredo a young white male who is registers culturally as hispanic says, “I identify as culturally Hispanic.. but what color am I? White, and I feel like I am treated that way sometimes…”. This is different in which Alfredo being white wants to be accepted as his culture, hispanic, but seems to be neglected that opportunity due to his skin color. This next example gets to me the most and I am sure it will get to you as well; in the Blackness Project a young African American female named Nacole was just about to have a baby and was talking to her boss about the newborn and family leave policy at the company, and he responded by saying, “Who keeps your job because you just had a baby? “Oh well why don’t you just leave him in the cage because that’s where he will be when he gets older”. With this response not only did it shock everybody in the workplace and everybody who soon learned about it but it shocks me and should shock you as well. It should not only shock you because of the rude remark made but because of the nature in the boss for saying that.

Actions like this make you wonder how and why and how any human with  some sort of authority thinks like that. It should also make you scared for the fact that that statement said would be even a thought let alone said out loud to the individual in a professional setting. With that being said the Blackness project also talk about having to deal with this in everyday life.  The deep story of people speaking in the Blackness Project film is about how these individuals deal with and continue to deal with racism in everyday life. These people being interviewed were extremely passionate about the message they were attempting to portray about racism in the world. The people in the film were trying to get the viewers to understand that their experiences with racism is harmful and completely and one hundred percent unnecessary.

In addition to these facts about racism and how it still affects our world today famous author Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote a book called “Between the World and Me” which is rich with information regarding racism and how Coates learned to grow around it. On page 9 of the book Coates said, “All of this is common to black people. And all of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible”. In my opinion this is the most important quote of the book and the whole semester worth of writing. Coates being a critically acclaimed african american author just made the truest statement of a lifetime by saying that quote. When Coates says, “No one is held responsible” that should be the real eye opener for us. That clearly means that racism was not caused by anyone alive at this point meaning it dates back forever and at this point in the worlds time black people are used to it. After realizing that it makes me extremely upset due to the fact that in my opinion racism will never end. It has been going on since humans have started keeping records which can date back to the early Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs who also kept slaves.

With facts like these coming into play and realizing that the world is going to hit another economic struggle in the future can we really have confidence in society to end racism? Also I do not know about you but in my eyes since racism has been always apart of our society ity always will be due to the fact that even if in five-hundred years the world has no idea what it is, it will always be apparent in our literature and records and most importantly our history and in the early 1900’s and how hard we worked to overcome that struggle and how we are still working to overcome it today.

 

Works Cited

Coates, Ta-Nehisi, and Klaus Amann. Between the World and Me. Reclam, Philipp, 2017