Racism And Intolerance In The United States
Carol Anderson’s “White Rage”, highlights the centuries long racial divide our nation has faced, with White America’s constant detriment of African American progress.
White rage. White resentment. White anger. The smoldering, cultivating hatred and ravenous killings of African Americans. The foregrounding of whiteness, that Carol Anderson in her eye opening essay on white rage describes as cloaked by high society and the supposed “niceties of law and order, ” that is ravaging this country. White rage; the destructive myth that one coalition or group of people are superior to others and the predominant culture of pointing fingers at those believed to be inferior seems to weaving its way in our everyday lives. And in its essence, there seems to be an imposed danger prepositioned by this white force that erupts at moments of progress to thwart the advances of democracy and racial equality. In the world we live in, young white men and women rioting, overturning cars, and acting out violently are seen as enjoying the moment partygoers or unruly fans. But a group of mostly African American youth who do similar things out of sorrow and rage that a young black man has died in police custody are dangerous “thugs. ” The difference in the two descriptions is apparent. Happy “partygoers” whose youthful celebration “got a little out of hand” can be corrected and forgiven. “Dangerous thugs” present a much more ominous threat.
Racism is perplexing, complicated and individually riddled with aspects of prejudice. But to make matters worse, generations of racist attitudes are intertwined into our systems and institutions like harmful weeds, affecting us all. When our society’s election laws systematically makes it harder for those who have been oppressed for ongoing centuries in American history, African Americans to vote; when police officers don’t do their jobs correctly and decidedly pick and choose who to protect and aren’t held accountable for their actions; when schools and jobs are coincidently of less grade and quality where people of color live, and when white society seemingly don’t know or frankly don’t care, we’ve evidently built a system and an overall society that immortalizes racism whether we intend to or not.
What happened to Philando Castile in the summer of 2016, didn’t just happen to him. Names of young african males are constantly popping up on the news, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and the list goes on, and always in the same fashion: shot by police, unarmed with their hands up in the air pleading not to shot or in the back for merely minor violations. This doesn’t stop. Until our justice system can show it holds all peoples accountable for their actions, black and white, civilians and police, we won’t be able to get beyond the reality of it all, that racism - systematic racism is involved. Promoting transparency and advocating for accountability for our actions and the actions of our society is the forefront in our fight against institutionalized racism, but that’s easier said than done.
Trump’s Presidency for instance, caused a whirlwind of race discussion. What was once thought to be left in the years of segregation and slavery, roared back to life, the social construct of racial superiority. Agent Orange’s presidency triggered a wave of violent prejudice that was already etched in American History. Fueled by our first ever African American president and the new voice for white America, Donald Trump, misconceptions of race and what it means to be black, became prevalent. White rage, through white supremacy and other hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan have become much more vocal in their racial stances, devaluing their fellow citizens on the basis of skin color. Race isn’t inherently biological but solely based on physical characteristics of a given group of people. Racism on the other hand, is the belief one person or group of people are better or superior from another group due to these characteristics. This is when it becomes destructive to our core values as human beings.
Skin is just that, skin; a pigmentation for centuries old adaptations, that fight off harmful UVAs. There’s a direct correlation between our skin color and latitude. The closer to the equator, we are the, the more melatonin our body systematically produces to fight off and shield from harmful ultraviolet rays. In geographical prepositioned areas, where cold weather gets to the extreme and daily sunlight is limited, like places like Iceland, or other cold regions of the world, whiter skin helps produce more Vitamin D. Humans are direct descendents of Africa, evolving in the continent, making us so closely interconnected. Thus, we all have the same assortment of genes, but marginally different variations of them. Hence, the color of our skin has zero connection to race as it is in all actuality, just a derivative of adaptation. Skin is a result of our ancestors acclimation to sun exposure, yet when race is brought up in current time, the first thing that comes to mind is skin color. Not all skin color is seen as equal though, as white skin seems to gain some sort of superiority over the rest, making matters worse. That constant hierarchy is wrong though. White rage and white prejudice are weaved throughout almost all aspects of our society and because of it, many people are suffering because of the color of their skin, instead of embracing or feeling proud of it. Most recently, white rage, in the form of the social media hashtag, “All Lives Matter”, has sweeped the nation, as a means to thwart the ever ongoing debate on the inequality of racial democracy. As in this instance, and many others, whites who have been historically entitled, feel left out when society tries to level the playing field for minorities. Educated and prominent, African Americans or other minorities, in this country, are seen as successful and an exception to their race, a subconscious bias.
Intolerance in the United States is becoming normal, rejecting what is thought as the unknown is part of our self mechanism and as African American novelist Toni Morrison once famously said, “… American means white and everybody else has to hyphenate”, as it seems many white Americans have a hard time understanding other perspectives and accepting those who look different then them on the basis of physical characteristics. Nevertheless, it’s quite scary that in the 21st century, with all of our limitless capabilities, through education, and the ever growing technological world, racism is still observable and in existence. We’ve turned intolerance into an art form, by turning a group of people into a common enemy for the supposed betterment of our nation.
