Racism in contemporary America. Permanence, diminution or transformation?

Résumé du document

All across the world, the United States of America is often considered through myths, symbols and simplifications. The bubbles of their Coca-Cola, the strength of their athletes, the height of their skyscrapers or the lively melodies of their pop stars would be, in many people's mind, enough to put in a nutshell America. Similarly, people regularly caricature the US with a less glorious image, racism. As a matter of fact, the United States is regularly denounced as the country of the KKK, the miserable black ghettos or the so-called hopeless racist Deep South. On the contrary, other people believe that America has entered in a post-racial era, notably with the election of the first Black president Barack Obama. To their mind, the Americans may have finally solved their problem of racism. But, the two opposite points of view about racism in America are both distorted and oversimplified. The state of racism today is way much complex and ambiguous. This is why the topic of this paper will be about prejudices and clichés about 'racist America', to try to find out how racism today, looks like in the US. In the debate about the link between racism and the United States, there is at least one consensus i.e, racism is deeply rooted in the past of the country. Racist ideology is indeed present in America since the very beginning, and it has haunted the whole history of the country. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, on the 4th of July 1776, it was said that 'all men [were] created equal'.

Extraits

[...] Is the so-called post-racial Obama election a proof of the healing of America or is it just a smoke-screen that hides the racist reality of the country? How strong is the influence of racism in contemporary America? In 1965, D. P. Moynihan, a famous sociologist, believed that the “racist virus in the American blood stream” was still affecting the United States. Let's try to show in which extends this affirmation is still relevant or not. Some substantial improvements This first part of this paper tackles an obvious reality: since the success of the Civil Rights movement, huge changes have occurred in America. [...]

[...] Some people even talk about a “post-racial” America, where races would not care anymore. David Axelrod, Obama's political advisor, said in September 2008 that Americans are willing to enter in a post-racial society”. To Obama himself, America is “hungry for racial unity” However, despite this really positive evolution, racism didn't vanish. It is still there. Nevertheless it seems that racism is not the norm anymore: it became an exception Racism: still present but not predominant anymore? This is not false to claim that mixed weddings are becoming more and more important. [...]

[...] Black slaves, coming from Africa, were so useful for the planters of the South that it was impossible to consider them as equals and thus let them the possibly to be free. The Americans solved this contradiction by claiming that, yes, all men were created equal but, no, Blacks (and also Indians) weren't genuine men. Racism didn't just enable and encourage slavery, it legitimated it. But, the 18th of December 1865, the 13th amendment of the US Constitution abolished slavery. It meant a lot for African-Americans: they were finally free. [...]

[...] This is here clear discrimination. But this is not exactly racism. This is why it is more relevant to say that America suffer more from a problem of race than from a problem of racism. racial divisions: between racism from the past and racism from the present To sum up quickly what we have seen until now: the idea of race is very present in America –even if it is not necessarily accepted- , this context have created many prejudices prejudicial towards Blacks and, to go back to the second part, there is also a underlying racism still alive in the US society. [...]

[...] Only 19% of the Whites believed in this discrimination theory. In of the Whites reckoned that discriminations were no longer a significant factor concerning the success in life. The majority of the Hispanics and the Blacks had the opposite feeling. There is thus a persisting racial divide in beliefs about the prevalence of racial discrimination and the causes of racial inequality. Barack Obama explained that, at the aim at perfecting the union-or in other words at enhancing the relations between races- the white community should “acknowledge that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the mind of black people; that the legacy of discrimination,-and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past- are real and must be addressed.” racial minorities are responsible for their problems” But, even if more and more Whites believe minorities don't face structural barriers to upward mobility, it is not enough to deduce that those people are racist. [...]