Thinking About Race - Essay Example

I was unable to determine the racial makeup in my neighborhood, but the data for the population of the whole city, which' Westminster, CO is that the racial makeup of the city is 84.19% White, 1.23% African American, 0.74% Native American, 5.48% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 5.52% from other races, and 2.76% from two or more races. 15.23% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. (Census Website) I live in an area where the whites compose most of the population, thus the racial tolerance among them is lower than among the members of the communities, where the racial diversity is greater.

Most of the women in my neighborhood are working, and some of them are the breadwinners in their families, thus, in my opinion, there are little displays of gender inequality in my home area. As I've already mentioned, most of the members of my community are whites. As I'm a white female, most of them look like me; they have the same skin color and phenotypical peculiarities as I have. In the same time the other dwellers of our neighborhood, which are Hispanic, Asian or Afro-American, look quite differently.

The shade of their skin is darker, they have the shapes of eyes and mouth different from mine. Most of the Afro-American women are taller than I am, and most of the Asian girls are lower. Also they dress differently, the Afro-American and Hispanic women put on bright clothes, while most white women, except for the young girls wear something dark or pastel. It is also that the Afro-American, Hispanic and Asian people behave somehow differently. The Hispanic and Afro-American people talk louder than the whites do, they are more open-minded and frank and their personal space is less than the most whites have, and it sometimes causes misunderstandings between the representatives of those races.

On the contrary, Asians are much more closed and less sociable than the others are, and their personal space is even greater than that of the whites. (Healey, 2002) In my neighborhood most Afro-Americans and Hispanic people live in shabby small houses and their level of income is less than the others have. On the contrary, the Asians in my neighborhood are as wealthy as the whites are. Thus the local authorities act mostly to represent the interests of the white majority, and of those who have at least medium income.

The complaints of the medium income whites are more likely to be heard and their requests fulfilled. The representatives of the Afro-American and Hispanic population as seen as the risk groups for falling under the poverty threshold and the statistics shows that there are much more of them who live below it. (Wikipedia) Also there are more criminal elements among them. The researchers explain that by the fact that they experience discrimination while trying to get the education and the decent job, thus their income is much less than that of the average white.

This gives birth to the hostility and envy, and they step onto the path of wrongdoing. Also there is greater risk of substance abuse exists for those groups of people, as one of the consequences of poverty.Thus the officials treat most of the Afro-Americans, Asians and Hispanic people as the members of the risk groups. They often see them as the potential alcoholics, drug abusers, bums and hookers, thus the policeman pay more attention to them, if they see them walking down the