Race and the U.S. Society - Essay Example

It has prejudiced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes. Racism has penetrated every aspect of American society and shows no sign of lessening. As world is globalizing and the communication in a global village is not a piece of cake. You have a neighbor who speak different language and has different size and values. According to Dean C. Barnlund, technology has transformed the world and these technological advances resulted in a greater exchange of people between nations, more frequent contact with other cultures, have made it necessary to learn to coexist with people different from us.

Racism can be a hurdle in communication. One has to put racism factor aside and then have to talk by keeping in mind that the audience has many different minds so the need is to develop cultural attitudes. Barnlund believes that there are certain rules to survive in global village and that is to identify the norms that govern face-to-face relations, to identify 'the rule books of meaning' that distinguish one culture from another, to understand how other cultures perceive the world, to know the assumptions and values that are the foundation of these perceptions and to gain access to the worldview and the communication style of other cultures.

He further says that successful communication depends on "understanding" and understanding depends on the degree of similarity of perceptual orientations, the degree of similarity of systems of belief, and the degree of similarity in communicative style. If you take Burnlund argument into account then after a little thinking you understand that he talks about racism indirectly by saying world a global village as in global village a person cannot survive by minding his own business because to cross the cultural boundaries one has to keep racism aside.

When seeking to understand the state of race relations in 21st Century America, one must gain a clear picture of the nature of racial discrimination; it is the belief that one group of people with a particular organic make up is superior to other groups with a differing biological make up. Thus, these groups believe superior are allowed to gain economic power and social supremacy over the other groups considered lesser. This condition is all the more infuriating in America because of the many strides that have been made over the past decades to contest the situation.

The most tarnished example of racism by the West has been slavery, mainly the enslavement of Africans in the New World.Racism is no less then a social taboo now. There was a time when humanity was above everything and we use to teach our children to love and respect every one but in today's world we ask them not to go or play with the neighbors as they are "Blacky". Who is that little boy who was being teased Yes he is the invisible man of Mary, blues people of Leroi Jones or Hosna of the season of migration to North and for me and you its "Black people".

The three main causes for racism are: racism has become part of our inheritance, right-wing racial and political groups, and smugness in one's own race. Practically since the daybreak of man's existence man has definitely noticeddifferences between races. "Racism's presence throughout the formation of ourculture is quite evident" (Tucker 17). Universally throughout history the ethnicgroup with the most power has tacit that its race and culture are superior