A Research Of Racial Discrimination Throughout History

Race discrimination goes back a thousand years before the colonization of countries African, Asian and American continents. The English, French, Italians, and Spaniards spearheaded the colonization of these countries. However, years before colonization, slave trade was very popular with people with black skins and coloreds being the main target. These slaves were taken to countries like America, England, and French where they were treated in inhumane ways due to their color. Racism has however evolved over the years. There are various other discrimination types including age discrimination, sex discrimination, industrial activity discrimination, religious, and disability discrimination. The bone of contention has however always been race discrimination. The fight against this has led to deaths and assassinations of significant people including Martin Luther King Jr.

According to Olusoga (Olusoga), the ideas of a black or a colored person being inferior to a white man still lingers in the minds of many including the victims themselves. He notes that, Africans especially have accepted their inferiority, and most of them desire the lives of European Americans. That being said, most European American individuals still have these racist ideas against, not only Africans but also Asians. Olusoga credits these ideas to slavery and colonialism. He laments that with all the racial discrimination, the African Continent suffers most of all the continents since it is considered the home of the black people including those in America and United States.

Julian Go, in his article “Racism and Colonialism: Meanings of Difference and Ruling Practices in America’s Pacific Empire” explains that racism also affected the countries of Samoa, Philippines, and Guam. He explains that racism in these countries was brought about by the modern colonialism from the United States. He explains that colonialism was justified by beliefs of European superiority hence justifying their reason to conquer and exploit other nations. He notes that these beliefs still linger on the minds of the colonialists hence their adverse attitude towards the changes that have brought equal treatment to all humans despite their color or race. He however disputes that racism is often confused with imperialism. Imperialism is considered the new colonialism and since it affects the less fortunate countries, citizens of these countries have felt that these imperialist countries still have the superiority complex originated from colonialism.

Race discrimination has had benefits and disadvantages. Due to this discrimination, victims have fought against all odds to make it in life. Several notable characters have risen against all odds and become famous for their talents and abilities. Jesse Owen is one of the most famous characters who was faced with racial discrimination and beat the odds. Owens was one of the black Americans to win a gold medal in the Olympics held in Germany. Adolf Hitler, a known racist, was at the time the leader of Germany. He believed that a black man was inferior and there was no way he would beat a white man in the track. Jesse was faced with discrimination from both the hosts, Germany, and his home country America. He however went forward to win two gold medals. Hitler was too embarrassed and refused to shake his hand. A fellow German athlete walked with Owens after the race (Matthews, 2019). Other notable figures have been the Usain Bolt, 100 meters Champion, football legends like Pele from Brazil, Oprah Winfrey, Martin Luther King jJr. Malcolm X and Barack Obama who against all odds became the first black president of the United States of America. These achievements have made the world look at all people from different races equally.

Issues with security and terrorism has attracted racial discrimination. In the United States, for instance, Arabs and Muslims have suffered a great deal of racial discrimination. Since the bombing of the Twins Tower complex on the 11th of September, Arabic Muslims have all been seemed as involved in the terror attacks in the United Attacks. Muslims have sometimes been discriminated against in job opportunities and other life opportunities like education and other important social amenities. This has sometimes resulted to the radicalization of those Muslims who previously had good intentions at heart due to the harsh treatment they receive at times. Most of the American population live in fear of socializing with American Muslim citizens since they might be sympathizers of terrorists or even members. On the other hand, most citizens feel that the ill treatment of Muslims sometimes goes overboard (Banton, 1992).

Cris Bail from the Duke University states that radicalization of Muslims goes hand in hand with the discrimination they receive from the rest of the citizens. There are several Muslims who are loyal citizens but decide not to report their fellow Muslims since they feel a sense of belonging from their fellow Muslims who appreciate them and their beliefs. The American government has done searches over the internet to search for malicious behavior and searches over the internet. Research and findings released by google have showed that there are several words like “halal” that have been searched multiple times on the internet trying to find food that is allowed or prohibited by the Quran. The findings have indicated that most of the Muslims have no ill intentions of being terrorists or colluding with terrorists. However, the discriminations they go through may sometimes harden their heart make them become partisan to these terrorist attacks.

Racial and religious discrimination for Muslims has gone hand in hand and has become hard to separate the two kinds of discrimination since most Muslims come from the Arabic nation. This kind of discrimination has run across all kinds of colors since the various kinds of terrorist’s groups have spread to all continents. For instance, the Boko Haram of Nigeria are black people who practice Islam and use their religious beliefs to wage wars and engage in attacks. There are several other Islamic terrorist’s groups like Al Shabab, based in Somalia that are purely made of black people.

The governments in the world have tried to fight these kinds of discrimination and tried to advise the Muslims to try to blend in with the rest of the public. The government and some prominent Muslims that have pioneered for the cohesion between Muslims and the other citizens. With this tolerance will increase between all the citizens. This will in turn reduce the intolerance and make Muslims become a welcomed party. This has helped fight against terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Racial discrimination has been a problem in the countries with mixed races like South Africa and Brazil. Most of these countries suffered from Colonialism with most of the settlers opting to remain in the country, In the case of South Africa for instance, the country only got its independence in the year 1994, the settlers decided to stay in the country despite the country being granted independence. This brought bitter feelings from the indigenous black south Africans who felt that the settlers still run the country. This has made South Africa one of the most insecure places to be since the indigenous citizens who feel that they have been denied of equal opportunities from the rest of the others start killing both whites and immigrants who have acquired jobs in these places. This has stalled the growth of specific areas in the country and attracted poverty. With poverty comes crime and with crime comes insecurity. Slums like SOWETO have grown too big due to these conditions. South Africa racial discrimination was once worse that even social amenities like schools and hospitals were not shared. This period was known as Apartheid (Joorst, 2019).

Discrimination of race has brought more problems that good to the society. During the early 19th Century, black American Citizens did not have the rights to vote leaders to office. Martin Luther King Jr, a gifted speaker and theologist started the peaceful resistance against the discrimination of African Americans. They made peaceful marches through Alabama and the surrounding states. Their resistance was however met with utmost brutality and ruthlessness. Many people lost their lives from beatings from the police and other whites. However, some of the white Americans were concerned with the fight for the rights of the black people. In the subsequent resistance matches, a good number of Europeans joined their course. However, the loss of lives due to racial discrimination, and the bloodshed still lingers on the minds of many African Americans.

According to John Stewart, Slave trade caused a minimum of a million deaths were estimated to have occurred during the ferrying of the slaves from Africa to Europe and America. Even though these deaths were not recorded, the number of bought slaves and the number of those who arrived to be auctioned and solved were never equal. Racial discrimination led to slave trade since the white people saw the blacks as an inferior race or group of people. However, this left families in the African communities shattered and increased suspicion among each other since the African leaders were the ones involved in this trade.

There are other challenges brought by racial discrimination. In job environments, racial discriminations have often formed a divide in the workforce. It is evident in most companies that Asian and African-Americans rarely get most of the top positions like managing directors. Other employees may also racially abuse others in the workplace. This brings discomfort and intolerance at the workplaces which in turn breeds unproductivity, intolerance, and prejudices. This then affects the profits that an organization expects since without a united workforce, the output will be relatively less.

Another challenge that has been brought about by racial discrimination include physical and emotional impacts to both the culprit and the victim. The victims of racial discrimination often suffer from depression and rejection. This affects their self-esteem and make them lose hope in life. Scientists have discovered that these victims are both mature people and the children. This comes along with anxiety, depression, sadness, and the feeling of being unwanted. Most of these depressed persons often engage themselves in activities that are sometimes harmful to themselves for instance suicide or in activities that will affect others in a negative manner. On the other hand, culprits also suffer from guilt and jail time once caught and prosecuted by a court of law against the discrimination Act.

Racial discrimination also has social, economic and financial effects on individuals and the society as a whole. Discrimination leads to discontent, and the feeling of unwanted people. There are adverse effects on the family setting once such feelings and sentiments are felt. Discrimination shutters self-confidence and hence may lead to breaking down of the family unit once depression and low self-esteem kicks in. With broken families, poverty and financial ability is crippled. This often happens to the victims who then lead to the suffering of their families in cases where they are the breadwinners of the family. This then leads to an economic effect on the country since widespread poverty leads to economic staggering since the Gross Domestic Product will significantly reduce. With widespread poverty, crime and insecurity are always expected to increase. This in turn increases the bitterness and intolerance from both the culprits and the victims making it hard to solve this discrimination problem.

Racial discrimination has had a very negative effect on politics and leadership. In African Countries, ethnicity which is a kind of discrimination of ethnic groups has led to split ups in countries and sometimes led to civil wars. An example is Kenya, who's the 2007 general presidential election was faced with turmoil and led to bloodshed. The country was divided in ethnic groups which supported their candidate despite the release of the election results. It took the country almost a year to rebuild and integration into one cohesive group after the intervention of the United States. In Rwanda, the two major tribes were involved in one of the bloodiest genocides ever recorded in history. This shows that discrimination goes to the narrowest of differences of human beings.

These kinds of discrimination can however be overcome. Most of the people who discriminate others in any way learn this trade from their peers or even parents. Since the effects of discrimination as discussed above prove beyond doubt to be very detrimental, a solution to this would be to educate people especially the coming generations on how important it is to tolerate everyone despite their race, opinion, or differences. This will slowly shade off the scales of discrimination from the society. This will in turn lead to cohesion and more acceptance to all people with differences.

On the other hand, people being discriminated against will need to act strong and accept their differences. The more one tries to fit in a group they are not, the more they get hurt by rejection and depression hence leading to all the above effects discussed above. This will therefore make the victims stronger emotionally hence able to withstand the negativity. Successful people who were discriminated against like Jesse Owens, beat all the odds to become successful. This emotional strength helped him fight discrimination from both outsiders and fellow countrymen.

In conclusion, any form of discrimination, may it be racial, ethnic, gender, disability or age should never be tolerated. Discrimination is negative and pulls civilization behind and tears down developments since on the extreme it could result to violence. It can also be realize that both the white people and colored people have experienced some kind of discrimination when they find themselves in a different setting. To correct this situation, all people need to accept each others differences and live cohesively. Racial discrimination should be fought against with all the means possible.

References

• Olusoga, D. (2019). The roots of European racism lie in the slave trade, colonialism – and Edward Long | David Olusoga. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/08/european-racism-africa-slavery
• Nytimes.com. (2019). A History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/books/review/a-history-of-race-and-racism-in-america-in-24-chapters.html
• Matthews, D. (2016). Retrieved from https://splinternews.com/80-years-ago-jesse-owens-destroyed-the-olympics-racial-1793860976
• Deb Roy, R. (2019). Science Still Bears the Fingerprints of Colonialism. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-bears-fingerprints-colonialism-180968709/
• Joorst, J. (2019). Racism is still rife in South Africa's schools. What can be done about it? Retrieved from https://www.skillsportal.co.za/content/racism-still-rife-south-africas-schools-what-can-be-done-about-it
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• Markussen, T., & Mbuvi, K. (2011). When Does Ethnic Diversity Lead to Violence? Evidence from the 2007 Elections in Kenya. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.1891796
• Cejas, M. (2007). Racial Discrimination in Post-Apartheid South Africa: A New Irreducible “Other”? Safundi, 8(4), 473-487. doi: 10.1080/17533170701635394
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