America as the Land of Opportunity Where Anyone Can Achieve Upward Intergenerational Mobility - Essay Example

The United Nations has adopted this definition of racial discrimination as distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, skin color, descent, or national and ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise on an equal footing of human rights and fundamental freedoms in political, social or economic and cultural or any other field of public life (Lérner 25).

  Discrimination in varying degrees still exists today despite several efforts to eradicate it. Governments throughout the world adopted various laws banning discrimination whether it is based on race, gender, religion, or some other superficial distinction like sexual orientation. America is no exception in this regard although discrimination is no longer very blatant such as those existing in the Jim Crow era where public utilities such as schools and buses were all racially segregated.

It is still lurking beneath the surface and is practiced in subtle ways. It is because race and racism are a very central part of American society (Blauner17) in both the past and present. Although slavery was officially abolished with Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War and further enshrined in the Constitution through the Thirteenth Amendment, it is still practiced in nuanced ways that people hardly notice unless one takes a very observant view of how it is being done these days.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned it officially but some people practice discrimination in unofficial ways. Racism is no longer that apparent but had changed in many subtle ways. It is no longer directed against blacks alone but to other minorities such as Hispanics or Asian-Americans or anybody who is not considered to belong to the great majority of whites of European ancestry. Before, it was directed against certain whites such as the Polish-Americans, Irish-Americans or American Jews, or Americans of Italian descent (Fredrickson 634).