Term Paper on "History of Racism & Its Impact on Society"

Term Paper 9 pages (3824 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

History Of Racism and the Impact of Racism on Society

Racism and its impact have been felt all over the world and the innate struggles and tussles that racism involves are being felt not only in the United States of America but also across the entire world. In the United States of America, racism has been in a particularly virulent form, and this may be because of the undeniable fact that America has been built on the labor of African slaves, and also on the labor obtained by the exploitation of poor immigrants. In the year 1860, there was a Civil War that was ought to demand the abolition of slavery, and this did end the cruelty of slavery. However, during and after the defeat of Post War reconstruction, both capitalists as well as plantation owners subjected 'Black People' to a sort of 'semi-slavery', and this continued until the Mass Struggles by the African-Americans that came into force during the middle of the 1950's. (Perlo, 1)

Racism, especially over the past few years, has become something that is being expressed in more subtle and understated ways than ever before, and this may be because of the fact that today, more and more 'whites' are disowning the concepts of racism, and are at the same time proclaiming that theirs is an 'egalitarian' society, where all men are born equal. However, certain behavioral patterns and ideas are indeed embedded in their very psyche, so that even though they state that they do not believe in racism, their behaviors would indicate that they do. (Bynon; Cleary; Hamilton; Maller; Melior; Watson, 46) When a study was conducted to assess students' feelings on the subject of racism, it was found that even Universities are not at all immune to the tenets of racism and all that it entails. This is true despite all the numerous legislations that have been passed over the years on the subject of Civil Rights, and racism even today remains one of the most pressing and ever present problems in the United States of America and in the society. (Allen, Annette M; Brackett, Kimberly P; Marcus, Ann; Mullins, Larry C; Pruett, Daniel W; Tang, 22)

It is a sad fact that racism and the various forms of prejudices that it entails have been in existence among mankind throughout history. Another sad fact is that the fear of the unknown is indeed a widely recognized fear, and the fear of the unknown also includes fear of strangers, and throughout history, there have been instances when people have sharpened their defenses and fortified their weaknesses so that they would be better able to deal with strangers who were trying to approach them for some reason or the other, and all this was done so that they would remain safe within their four walls. This notion has, in fact led to the starting of more than a few wars over the years, and also ended up in killing more than a few millions of people over the years. There was, amazingly, a concept during older times, that there were two human races, one of which was 'white', and one, another color. (the History of Racism)

It was also believed that the white race was both physically as well as mentally quite superior to the other race, and that all the others were inferior. For example, Ernest Renan stated that the 'blacks' of Africa, the aborigines of Australia, and the 'indians' of America were all people who belonged to this 'inferior' race, whereas all the others belonged to the 'superior' white race. When Christopher Columbus set out on his historic journey, and discovered what he then named 'indians', he was in fact surprised that these were also people, juts like the Europeans that he was familiar with until then. However, these indigenous people were considered to be more 'animals' without a soul, than human beings, and they were eliminated as was seen fit at that time, today, there are very few of these native Americans in existence any more.

Another racist idea that was entirely discriminatory and also deeply unethical was that of Adolph Hitler in Germany during the middle years of the 1990's. Born in the year 1889, Adolph Hitler was not only hot-tempered but also 'selfish and lazy'. His father was a drunkard, and the young boy grew up in a less than suitable environment for a boy of his age, and he later traveled to Vienna to attempt to eke out a living as a painter. It was in Vienna that the young Hitler managed to build up a strong feeling of hatred for Jews, and this resulted, in later years, to the widely launched campaign against not only Jews, but also against communists, the handicapped, gypsies, and also homosexuals. Hitler made concentration camps where Jews were brought in large numbers to be killed or 'exterminated', and during many such campaigns, more than six million Jews were killed. This was Racism at its peak. (the History of Racism)

Racism existed all around the world, including during ancient times. What exactly dose racism signify, and why is so mush of racism and bias based on the color of a person's skin, and on facial features and not on any other physical aspects like height and stature? One of the perfect early examples of racism at its peak was the 'caste system' of ancient India, which as a matter of fact, exists even today. The Hindu religion has the fair skinned Brahmins as religious heads and leaders, whereas the darker skinned groups of people, who are thought of as being so low that they were referred to as 'untouchables', are considered to be vastly inferior to the whites, and are treated accordingly. (Early History)

In the same way, ancient Egyptians, who were in fact very well aware of the physical differences between human beings, also showed racism where they distinguished the ethnicity of the several different groups of Egyptians. Redheaded people were more often than not murdered because they were thought of as being 'evil'. Similarly, Ancient Greeks also demonstrated racism, even though they were also, like the Egyptians, aware of all the physical differences in human beings. For example, Herodotus from 484-425 BC is known to have labeled black skinned people as being 'Ethiopian', which in Greek meant 'burnt-faced'. Interestingly, the word 'barbarian', who means uncultured, stems from the Greek usage of the word that, meant a person who was 'not Greek'.

In other words, anyone who was not as cultured and sophisticated as a Greek was called a 'barbarian'. In the time before the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment, the differences between man was marked by their various modes of ethnic descent, and most of the time, these differences were more religious than racial. One example of a religious war that was carried out in the name of religion was the 'Crusades', and there is a widespread belief that the Crusades was in fact a sort of example for the later persecution of Jews in Germany in 1196 AD. The Spanish Inquisition was another cause for which numerous people lost their precious lives, in the name of racism and racist spirit. (Early History)

As far as America is concerned, one of the most important events that played a crucial role in the development of the country was the arrival of Africans to Jamestown, in the year 1619, when a Dutch trader exchanged a full cargo load of Africans for food. These Africans became what was known as 'slaves' or in other words, indentured servants, who were quite inadvertently similar to those poor Englishmen who had to put in several years of hard labor in order to gain a passage into America. However, it was not until the year 1680 that the concept of the most popular race-based slave system caught on, and at the same time, the word 'slave' entered the Southern vocabulary as being a technical and acknowledged word in the trade and politics and law of the time. (Chronology on the History of Slavery 1619 to 1789)

When tobacco planting became a successful enterprise, and more people were needed to run the business, the slavery of Africans became actually legalized in the states of Virginia and Maryland, and since the very economy of these states had to depend on the Africans for survival, the number of African slaves started to grow in number, and soon there were many slaves in these states as well as in the surrounding ones. During the next years, that is, from 1650 to 1750, the very face of slavery began to change, and those slaves who had been referred to as 'tawny Indians' came to be known as 'blackamoor Africans', and in the meantime, the ethnic indians of America, whose race was unsuitable for hard labor and for agriculture, began to reduce in numbers, and after numerous colonial wars were waged against these people, like for example, the Pequots, the Tuscaroras, and the Yamasees.… READ MORE

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