Ethnic_Groups_and_Discrimination

Ethnic Groups and Discrimination Racism as a social invention in and of itself became a breeding ground for many of the social ills of today, such as, racial profiling, capital punishment, police brutality, predatory lending, No Child Left Behind, welfare reform, affirmative action and racial disparities in healthcare, academic achievement and home ownership. I personally belong to the African American ethnic group. We never colonized another group of individuals nor did we immigrate to this country. During the 15h and 16th centuries, the Portuguese, Dutch and English realized the profit value that a market in human capital would provide and decided to travel to Africa to enslave and export from their homeland millions of its inhabitants as slave labor for distribution to the West Indian sugar plantations, and the cotton and tobacco plantations of the colonies in the New World. My ancestors were packed like sardines in the hulls of slave ships under the most horrible conditions imaginable. As many as 1.5 million perished as a result of illness, suicide, insurrection, and sometimes murder by example (Rediker, 2007). Survivors of the voyage were dropped of the boat into a racist social structure where Whites felt that God had deemed them inherently superior to others. Considered non-human and treated as property, Africans were auctioned or sold for rum and sugar that was sent back to England. They could not possess property, marry or enter into contracts, and had to abide by many laws or be punished if those laws were broken. Africans were punished for the slightest infraction; running away would most likely be a death sentence, with almost no exception. The Africans’ ethnic category was obvious, and cinched their place as a subordinate group who would endure a combination of racism (described above), prejudice (inherently hated, despised and feared by whites for no apparent reason other than being black), and segregation (physically separated in workplace, residence and social functions) for the next 400 years. African-Americans suffered the inequality that exists in the labor market and were not privy to the primary labor market with its high incomes, fringe benefits and job security. Limited education options forced African-Americans to participate in the secondary labor market and to pursue low or unskilled jobs with low returns to education or experience, little training and even less job security than their White counterparts. Dual labor market practices prevented African-Americans from obtaining a substantive pay structure and benefits. As a result, they were forced to live in substandard housing in distressed neighborhoods with poor access to health care. “African-Americans and the poor are often forced to take on an unfair share of the costs and sacrifices that must be made to meet the government’s environmental regulations” (Center for Environmental Justice, 2009). In 1910, African-Americans owned 218, 972 farms. By 1914, 55 black banks were in operation to assist with financing. By 1992, after African-Americans began to move northward after WWI and WWII, The Great Depression, and farms essentially stolen from black farmers through deceptive financial practices the numbers of black farms dropped to 2,498 (Center for Environmental Justice, 2009). Affirmative action was intended to remedy racial exclusion practices by putting policies and initiatives in place to combat and eliminate discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. These equal protection laws were passed to make discrimination illegal, but have met with opposition on the grounds of “reverse discrimination and unwarranted preferences” (Sykes, M.) African-Americans were among the victims of the redlining practices of mortgage lenders who refused to make loans on any properties in neighborhoods they considered to have an undesirable population or an infiltration of it which would cause an area to be sentenced to death because of its ethnicity. Research has even shown racial inequities in the use of institutionalized care for elderly African-Americans who were admitted to nursing homes between half and three quarters of the rate of elderly whites (Belgrave, L.L., Wykle, M.L. & Choi, J.M., 1993). African-Americans are still victims of racial profiling by police, the housing industry, schools systems, retail stores, and many other public institutions. Sociologist, author and Professor of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, K. Sue Jewell, states that “the federal government’s programs designed to help the disadvantaged have not only failed to help African Americans, but nearly forty years later they may have left many African American families worse off than they were before”. She also argues that policies put in place by both liberals and conservatives since the 1960s may have done more harm than good to Black institutions without bettering the situation of the disadvantaged. Regarding my own cultural identification, I identify with both equally. I am an American. Emmett J. Nixon Axia College enixon@email.phoenix.edu References Belgrave, LL, Wykle, ML, Choi, JM Health, double jeopardy, and culture: the use of institutionalization by African- Americans, Gerontologist 1993 33: 379-385, Retrieved July 26, 2009 http://gerontologist.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/citmgr'gca=thegeron;33/3/379, Davis, K, & Moore, W.E. (1945). Some principles of stratification. American Sociological Review. 10, 242-249 Jewell, K.S., Survival of the african-american family: the institutional impact of u.s. social policy (Praeger, 2003). Retrieved July 26, 2009 http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/aframfam.htm. Rediker, M. (2007). The slave ship, a human history. Viking Press. Penguin Group. October 4, Retrieved July 26, 2009. http://whgbetc.com/slave-ship-marcus-rediker.pdf Sykes, M., National NOW Times, August 1995. Retrieved July 26, 2009. http://www.now.org/nnt/08-95/affirmhs.html. The home owners loan corporation, Retrieved July 26, 2009 http://syracusethenandnow.org/Redlining/HOLC_Maps.htm Timeline, web site of the Public Broadcasting Service series "Homecoming... Sometimes I am Haunted by Memories of Red Dirt and Clay," Retrieved July 26, 2009. http://www.pbs.org/homecoming/timeline.html. . What is environmental justice' Do blacks want and really need it' Retrieved July 26, 200. http://www.nationalcenter.org/CEJ.html.