Why We Are Not Yet Living in a Post-racial America - Research Paper Example

Why we are not yet living in a post-racial America The United s of America has been combating racism against blacks and other minorities since a long time through political, social and media campaigns. American history has been a witness of various political breakthroughs which highlighted the prevalent racial differences in the American society. Many movies and talk-shows have been aired to depict the discriminated conditions of the “black Americans” and the prejudiced attitudes of the “White Americans”.

Although, many reforms have been brought in the law and basic civil rights to improve the living conditions of the black Americans and minorities such as Hispanics and Latinos, and the general population has also developed a change in their behaviors, but still America has not reached a “post-racial” era. The racial discrimination and prejudice still lingers amongst people’s daily life behaviors, responses showed by the law enforcing agencies, certain political movements, media and even our daily-life jokes and remarks.

As said by Fulwood, “Even though a black family lives in the White House, hardly anyone seriously argues that we live in a post racial society” (Fulwood). Although America’s presidency is run by a black American, the racial disparities have not been eliminated by just a presidential victory and the American society has still not entered into a post-racial era. After the victory of Obama in the presidential elections, many believed that having a black American as their president will mean the end of years of religious, ethnic and racial differences in America.

Not just White Americans, but also many Black Americans also believed that Obama would bring about a change and sweep away the years of racial prejudice. Black people thought that with Obama as the president, the opinions and thoughts of the others would change towards them and Obama would present them in a proud manner. However, with the passage of time, it dawned upon both White and Black Americans that racism is still present in the so-called post-racial America (Harris). The report released by Weller, Ajinkya and Farrel highlighted that the communities of color, living in America are not enjoying equal privileges of employment, housing, retirement benefits, private savings and other financial benefits.

The unemployment rate of African Americans is twice high as that of White Americans and the Latino unemployment rates are fifty percent higher than the white Americans. The communities of color are also encountered with lesser health insurance, less weekly earnings and fewer job opportunities as compared to the white Americans. In 2010, only 34.4 African Americans had a retirement plan at work, 21.4 Latino Americans while the white Americans who had a retirement plan were 44.3 percent (Weller et al).

It is evident from the report, that African Americans face a clear decline in economic fortunes as compared to others and the improvements made in terms of employment, housing and house-ownership are at a very slow rate. The tragic shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black adolescent, represents the prevalence of racial discrimination and the strong need for the political leaders and the society to destroy the illusion of post-racial American society. The shooter, Georger Zimmerman, a watch person, shot the boy suspecting him to be “up to no good” and “on drugs”.

The reason of the shooting was a mere suspicion which was highly dominated by racial discrimination as no drugs or alcohol history was found and the boy was only returning home from the nearby store. For three days, the boy’s family was not reported and no attempts were made to report the next of kin, in spite of the fact that the boy had a cell phone with him and anybody could have easily been informed. Only after a missing report was filed by the father, he got to know about the sad demise of his son (Davis).

The racial discrimination is so deeply engrained in the American people that the watch person gunned him down without any hesitation simply on the basis of his appearance and even went to the extent of assuming he was on drugs. If the youngster had been a white boy then maybe the chain of incidents would have been different and such neglect or ignorance might not have been shown by the police authorities. The political leaders boast of a post-racial America and claim confidently that racism and ethnical differences are a thing of past.

However, it would be very unfair and incorrect to consider that years of differences and prejudice have been eliminated from the roots only by the start of a presidency by Obama. Although, this is a major breakthrough and would lead to more decline of racial disparities but it would take many years to happen. For now, racism is still prevalent in different forms in American life, depicted either by the gunning down of a black youngster or by the comparatively poor financial conditions of the communities of color.

Works Cited Davis, George. “Trayvon Martin in Post-Racial America”. Psychology Today. 6 Apr. 2012. Web. 12 August, 2012. Earnest, Harris. “We are not Post Racial Just Yet”. The Huffington Post- Politics. 20 Jan. 2009. Web. 12 August 2012. Fulwood, Sam. “Race and Beyond; this isn’t a post-racial America”. Center for American Progress. 17 Apr. 2012. Web. 12 August 2012. Weller, Christian E., Ajinkya, Julie and Farrel, Jane. “The state of communities of color in the US Economy: still feeling pain three years into recovery.

” Center for American Progress; Poverty & Mobility. 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 12 August 2012.