Buarki1

Farah Buarki (American society)

Rebecca Morean
Eng100 D8/L8
April 17, 2015
Black Lives Matter in the U.S
Introduction
The way the American society treats African Americans has hardly changed since The Jim Crow
caws collapsed. Indeed, the emphasis on colorblindness has opposed the explicit use of race to
justify the exclusion and discrimination of some ethnic groups. However, the criminal justice
system has been employed to legalize the prejudicial treatment of blacks. A discussion of
equality, race-based crimes, rights, and the Civil Rights Movement reveals that racism remains
rife in American society. Black lives still do not matter in the United States because racial
discrimination has merely been redesigned rather than eliminated.
Equality
Blacks are yet to enjoy equality with whites in issues such as, education, jobs, income gaps, and
house prices. African American has difficulty accessing education, given public education funds
are extremely constrained by rising prison budgets. As a result, the standards of education are
higher among whites than blacks (Alexander 55). Blacks also find it twice as hard to find and
keep jobs. African American unemployment is approximately double than whites. Even when the
black unemployment rate declines, as it did in 2001 when it fell to 8.1%, it remains twice higher
than the white figure (Hacker 119). Additionally, African Americans tend to get jobs only after
white applicants have been accommodated. Further, whites who have barely completed high

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school get the first vacancies while blacks who remain in school are not assured of employment
(Hacker 119-120).
The racial income gap is evident in the earnings of black families compared to those of
white households. Andrew Hacker said Black families that have husbands in residence still end
up with only $817 for every $1,000 going to similar white households (Hacker 111). The
earnings of black households remain lower than those of white families primarily because black
men make less than their white counterparts. Moreover, white households are more likely to have
both spouses present, which increase the likelihood of multiple incomes. In contrast, more black
families are raised by single women, meaning that a higher proportion of hack households
survive on only one income that is relatively low (Hacker 110). Since the income of black men
tends to be lower than that of white men, few black families can afford to have full-time
housewives. Thus, a larger percentage of black (63.9%) than white married women (61.9%) are
in the labor force (Hacker112). Although the incomes of black and people tend to ascend with
increased education, the incomes of black men earn significantly less than white men, despite
having the same academic level.
The high unemployment level and low average income of blacks reduce their purchasing
power and hamper their ability to make home ownership investments, including moving into
larger and more costly housing. By contrast, whites can readily afford high housing prices
because they enjoy job security and relatively high incomes. Unlike whites, blacks tend not to
receive favorable credit assistance and terms in home sales transactions. Thus, home purchases
are easier to make for whites than blacks (Smedley, Stith and Nelson 99). Its harder for blacks to
do stable families.

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Social Media
Most African Americans have turned to social media as a tool for contemporary sociopolitical
activism. Social media offers an agency, a voice where African Americans can speak out on
diverse topics. They strive to make law enforcers, courts, local and state authorities aware of
critical issues facing the black community, which have been unaddressed by mainstream media
(Schradie 555). In this way, social media not only provides an opportunity that has historically
been denied to African Americans but also heightens blacks sense of safety and selfempowerment (Schradie 557). Blacks have built online communities and enhanced
communication among themselves through social networks. As a result, a subculture labeled
Black Twitter has emerged to show how African Americans get together and network with
each other, as well as, advance their interests (Wankel 28). Positive relationship between
consumption of mainstream and black media among African Americans and a positive
relationship between evaluations of the two sorts of media was discovered after analyzing results
of survey of 386 African Americans (Vercellotti and Brewer 231). African Americans had some
positive relationship with twitter social media network they get easily together so the public can
hear their voice.
Rights
Blacks are yet to fully enjoy their rights, despite having one of their own as president. In other
words, the election of an African American president has not yet eradicated racism in American
society contrary to popular belief. Michelle Alexander said, The popular narrative that
emphasizes the death of slavery and Jim Crow, and celebrates the nations triumph over race with
the election of Barack Obama, is dangerously misguided (Alexander 11). For instance, currently
a large percentage of blacks in America are legally excluded from voting as they were before the

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civil right movements (Alexander 1). They also have more difficulty accessing jury and legal
services than whites (Morgan and Davies 135). Racial discrimination coexists with the election
of a black president and widespread support for colorblindness because of indifference rather
than racial hostility (Alexander 14). A black president does not alter the oppression of the black
poor, which stresses the importance of race in the wider framework of economic and social life
opportunities (Orelus 157). Racism is not required to justify coercive economic relations as it did
during chattel slavery and racist ideas regarding white superiority are not needed to justify
imperial ambitions. Racial thinking is largely reproduced through notions of racial inferiority
(Bennet, Edles, Gibson and Inglis 89). On one hand, racism perpetrators pretend systemic racism
is no longer existent and resort to political debates to cover and rationalize their raciallyopinionated viewpoints. The daily discrimination experiences happen regardless of the race of
the president.
Crimes of Racism
Blacks are continually subjected to racially-based hate crimes, especially with the ever-growing
availability and issuance of guns. African Americans encounter racial discrimination in a
multitude of ways, including being denied access to the in-group, being labeled racist epithets,
being told racist jokes, racial tracking, discriminatory penalties, and racially-biased curricula and
texts. In addition, an extraordinary population of colored people are rounded up, arrested, and
imprisoned when they are no more likely to be culpable of crime than whites. Alexander said,
Thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes
that are largely ignored when committed by whites (Alexander 175). Such race-based
harassment can turn violent as in the case of physical attacks targeting African Americans. For

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example, young blacks have been victims of institutional racism perpetuated by law enforcers as
evidenced by the recent shootings of an 18-year-old and 12-year-old in Ferguson and Cleveland.
History and 1964 Civil Rights Movement
The possible return of Jim Crow laws in several states threatens the gains obtained by the 1964
Civil Rights Movement. Stringent voting laws that require citizens to possess photographic IDs
to participate in the voting process are similar to the Jim Crow rules that established a new
mechanism of racial segregation. Morgan and Davies said, By 1910, all of the southern states
had either adopted new state constitutions or a host of new laws that put into place a hierarchy of
citizenship based on race (Morgan and Davies 135). As a result, African Americans had no
political significance and civil rights, including political citizenship. They could not vote; they
could only use their presence to boost the electoral influence of their white masters. Other
measures that were employed to deny African Americans their voting rights included literacy
tests, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, and felon-based disenfranchisement legislation (Alexander
187; Gallagher and Lippard 597). Since the Jim Crow South did not hesitate to convict blacks of
anything, most African American offenders alleged or guilty - were excluded from voting.
Likewise, the proposed voting laws are bound to deprive many Americans, especially young,
elderly, poor, and non-white citizens of their vote. Many elderly persons, for example, have no
need to obtain a photographic ID if they no longer drive or retain their drivers license. Similarly,
poor citizens who cannot afford an automobile have no drivers license and, therefore, have no
use for a photographic ID.
Another threat to civil rights is posed by the imprisonment of minorities in large
numbers, with black communities being the most disproportionately affected (Unnever and
Gabbidon 36). The United States incarcerates more ethnic/racial minorities than all other

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countries globally. Consequently, at least one in three African American men are imprisoned, on
parole, or on probation (Alexander 9). The unprecedented imprisonment of people of color rather
than criticisms of affirmative action or poor civil rights enforcement constitutes the most
disastrous form of the attack against the Civil Rights Movement. Alexander stated, Mass
incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and all those who care about social justice
should fully commit themselves to dismantling this new racial caste system (Alexander 11).
Mass incarceration evokes the Jim Crow era in that it marginalizes a large proportion of the
African American community, isolates them physically in jails and ghettos, and authorizes their
discrimination. In addition, mass imprisonment assists in defining the importance of race in
American society since the stigma that criminals face operates in the same way as the stigma of
race during the Jim Crow system (Alexander 18). Even after being released, former felons
experience old forms of discrimination employment, housing, education, public benefits, and
civil rights - and permanent social isolation. For instance, in 2000 all the 11 ex-Confederacy
states enacted laws that permanently banned existing and former offenders from voting. In
Florida, citizens allegedly convicted of felonies failed to vote since their names were removed
from the voter rolls (Unnever and Gabbidon 37). Although Ohio has no legislation banning
felons from voting if they have completed their sentences, in 2004, letters were dispatched to exfelons in Republican-oriented counties warning them against participating in the voting process
(Unnever and Gabbidon 38). These voting restrictions constitute a legal legacy of Jim Crow and
foster a new form of race-based discrimination against blacks. Adding
Conclusion
The U.S. will be a safe and equal environment once the problem of racial discrimination has
been solved. The eradication of racial segregation will allow African Americans to access

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educational and employment opportunities, public benefits, housing, and civil rights to the same
extent as whites and other ethnic/racial groups. Blacks will feel increasingly safe as they will not
be subjected to racial profiling and unjustified arrests and incarceration. Likewise, they will be
safe from racially-based hate crimes. Social media might improve with black rights to stay equal
with white people and avoid crimes of racism, because social media is the voice of African
American.

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Works Cited
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New
York: The New Press, 2010.
Bennett, Andy, Desfor Edles, Margaret Gibson, David Inglis. Cultural Sociology: An
Introduction. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Gallagher, Charles and Cameron Lippard. Race and Racism in the United States. Santa Barbara:
ABC-CLIO, 2014.
Hacker, Andrew. Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 2003.
Morgan, Iwan and Philip J. Davies. The Federal Nation: Perspectives on American Federalism.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Orelus, Pierre. The Agony of Masculinity: Race, Gender, and Education in the Age of "new
Racism and Patriarchy. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.
Schradie, Jen. The Trend of Class, Race, and Ethnicity in Social Media Inequality.
Information,
Communication and Society, 15.4(2012): 555-571.
Smedley, Brian, Stith Adrienne and Alan Nelson. Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and
Ethnic Disparities in Health Care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2003.
Unnever, James and Shaun L. Gabbidon. A Theory of African American Offending: Race,
Racism, and Crime. New York: Taylor and Francis, 2011.
Wankel, Charles. Digital Humanities: Current Perspective, Practices, and Research. Cambridge:
Emerald Group Publishing, 2013.

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Vercellotti, Timothy, and Paul Brewer. <i>JSTOR</i>. 1 Nov. 2006. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
&lt;http://www.jstor.org