Racial Discrimination

One of the appalling Public issue that exist in the modern world is racial discrimination. Racial discrimination basically refers to maltreatment of a group of people based on their race, color, or religion. It accounts that race defines a human character and a race is either inferior or superior to others. This belief has led to a serious problem for specific individuals and society in general. In America, this behavior of racial discrimination has led to serious injuries and impacted the black community in the way they are treated in society and when it comes to justice implementation (Lee et al., 2019). This paper elucidates on several stories from individuals who have encountered racial discrimination and its effect on them.  Racial discrimination can be categorized into various types of discrimination, including Stereotyping and Prejudice.

Stereotyping refers to a fixed ideology concerning a group of people with a particular characteristic being the same.  This kind of discrimination affects how a person processes and interprets information. This is because stereotyped people see what they expect and cannot be talked out of it (Fazrian, 2017). Sometimes stereotypes can be said to be a form of mockery or wishful thing and response to prejudiced groups. A story from a reader in central Florida talks about how his car got pulled over by the police officers just because a person driving a car like his had pulled a gun on somebody in the neighborhood [2]. The victim had gone to get a book from his office, which was 20 minutes away from his house.  He took his car, and as he was riding, he noted a police car following him but keeping a good distance at first, he thought he was checking on the speed limit, which was 45MPH (Editors, 2015). Stopping at the next light, he sees another police vehicle joining the other and pulling over at a gas station’s cross intersection. Later he hears the officer yelling at him commands and pointing a gun at him asking him to get out of the car.

After questioning the police officers about the problem and why they are drawing guns at him, he receives no response and is told to turn around, keeping his hands up and lifting his t-shirt up to show whether he has a gun tucked in his waistbands. He is told to walk backward; still, a gun pointed at him, and the pat-down ensues (Editors, 2015).  The officer asks him for his ID, which is at the front passage seat as the victim is fuming and slams the door after taking the wallet, the police comment, “Calm down, I could be worse,” says the other officer.  After the victim complain about the unfair treatment. The officer plainly responds, “You don’t understand (Editors, 2015).” The officer questions stupid questions such as if he lives around that place has friends and family around here and wants them to check out reports of guns being pulled on people [2]. As he exits the place, he sees the two officers have not yet left to look for the criminal, therefore concluding that to find the real criminal driving in a car like his was not that important.

Prejudice refers to dislike, hostility behavior derived from preconceived and unfounded opinions. It is mostly directed to the inner groups that express a negative attitude to behaviors from the outsiders. This leads to a devastating aspect of human social behavior that results in sad, horrible violent activities (Fazrian, 2017). James Scott, a white reader with Melquea Smith, a black girlfriend, tells how they experience prejudice from three black boys. The couple was walking through Syracuse downtown when their black boys walked behind them (Editors, 2015). They distinctly heard one of the boys commenting, “Yo, she darker than he is.”As they continued walking, assuming they had heard nothing, one of them ask what the color of the baby they going to have (Editors, 2015).

When they didn’t respond or look back and continued walking, “Hey! I said, what color your baby gonna come out?!” they knew the boys were no longer talking about them but rather at them. The harassers continued following them, and a one-point they phrased “black bitch” to his girlfriend, which made her tense. As they came across a group of people that when the harassers stopped following them. The victim talks about her girlfriend shaking from fear and anger both at herself for not confronting them and at her boyfriend for not standing up for her (Editors, 2015). The boys had not said something about the guy but referred to the girlfriend as the black bitch. This brought a worry to the couple as they reflected the implication made by the boys regarding them having children (Editors, 2015). They wondered how their kids would be treated by black folks, the police, and the white folks in their society. The limited ability to help their children scared the crap out of them.

 In conclusion, the issue of racial discrimination is among the worst social problem that exists in society today. Discrimination is dangerous and disadvantage to people who ate aimed for discrimination acts. The unjust treatment and cruelty to an individual based on identity are devastating. The inability to accommodate and appreciate the differences in other people leads to conflict between individuals or groups. Stereotyping is like a disease that hiders the person from reality; therefore difficult to change. On the other hand, prejudice is a distractive outlook on social behavior that results in sad and horrible acts of violence.

References

Editors, T. (2015). Stories of Racism. The Atlantic. Retrieved 29 November 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/07/your-stories-of-racism/398117/.

Fazrian, A. (2017). RACIAL DISCRIMINATION PORTRAYED IN FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S SHORT STORIES:A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND AND EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE. Repositori.usu.ac.id. Retrieved 29 November 2021, from https://repositori.usu.ac.id/bitstream/handle/123456789/10744/130705144.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

Lee, R., Perez, A., Boykin, C., & Mendoza-Denton, R. (2019). On the prevalence of racial discrimination in the United States. PLOS ONE, 14(1), e0210698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210698