The long term effects of washington's up from slavery - Research Proposal Example

He will carve his place in history if he can travel a considerable way in removing racism from the American psyche. I often find the issue of my color an uncomfortable one and am even tempted to ignore it but things that keep happening in the social, cultural and political life of my country keep reminding me of the divisive force of racism. It is in the treatment of the black prisoners and discrimination in the matter of justice, job opportunities and suppression of rights. I find it difficult to accept the differential treatment only because of my skin color, only because I look black, and the way it reduces my relevance as a human being.

That, however, does not terminate my dream of a color-free world where humanity will be the only reality. And that reality I don't want to born out of any compassion of the white people for the black people or out of a conscious demonstration of liberalism of the whites for the non-whites but out of an established system of equal opportunities for the black people in every sphere of life like education, employment and other rights to have their rightful place in society. Racism is not something that will stop if the people stop talking about it.

Jack Dovidio, a University of Connecticut professor and a researcher of racism for over three decades, estimated that "approximately 80 percent of White Americans have racist feelings they may not recognize" (Shabazz 2007). It may have changed form but is very much there in the new millennium when for similar offence, a black is imprisoned and the white escapes with civil charges. This kind of experience produces in me a critical sense of contradiction that now for over a century has been haunting the black community.

Is not our approach to our struggle for equality with the whites with regard to social, political and economic rights by itself the very antithesis of our success in this endeavorIn my view, the conflict started from the time Booker T. Washington started the process of compromise with the white to secure a place for the black in America. I do not say that the policy of compromise with the objective of uniting the races followed by Washington was without worth in the context of the institutionalized racism prevailing in America at that time.

He needed the cooperation of the white as also their sympathy to see that such appeasement could at least check racism of all kinds against the black. His intention to achieve white sympathy and cooperation is no more pronounced than in the "Atlanta Compromise" (1895) where he spoke of working together for mutual progress. It was received by the radicals "as a complete surrender of the demand for civil and political equality; the conservatives, as a generously conceived working basis for mutual understanding" (DuBois 1903).

I find echo of this compromise I am talking about in the autobiographical account "Up From Slavery" (Washington 1901) portraying an optimism that never materialized in future race relations. 3 Washington in his effort not to ruffle the white feathers overlooked the need for a more aggressive approach to empower the Negroes by making them politically and educationally strong which could make their movement against racism self-sustaining and not dependent on the white accommodativeness.

I find it simultaneously painful and