Introduction
Racism is one of the most spoken about issue and one that has affected American all the way from its history. This is an issue of generic factors that basically plays on the fact of primary factors of human personality and individuality and the capacity at which the difference races will produce a stream of superiority they will carry. This is the discrimination of a certain given race over another; this given racial grouping will be denied their human rights and civil rights and even not given a chance to enjoy their benefits in different circumstances. On the other the ‘superior’ race is getting all the preferential treatment, what is theirs and what is not theirs. This inequity issues always points out at the taxonomic divergence between the people, which could be either based on ethnic or cultural.
This belief that some defined group of people have their social statues and their moral traits based on their inborn biological individuality. The separation and the segregation on an individual or group is what is based on the grounds of racism, and this has been well illustrated in the book the Ethics of Living Jim Crow where he clearly illustrates how he struggled through the life of a black person in a white community (Rothenberg 15). This did not only come from the experiences of his own life but also from the lessons of her mother where she made sure that he respected the white and could go to the extent of faulting him in the case that a white boy wronged him. The message that was send to him from family and relative it that the black community belonged in their place as the white people had their own high separate class. This made him live a life of fear of the white learnt from his mother and the only lesson that he learn is with time he will learn why his mother wanted him to feel that way.
His experience of racism at the south where they lived did not stop at his childhood but also when he is grown man. In this chapter he attempt to show us all that he had to go through at work at his efforts t climb the professional ladder just like any other person, in this case a white man. He tries to make sure that the audience of his writing catches is mainly the white, so that they can be in a position to comprehend the adversity and suffering that any black person has to endure so as to make it through the day. On getting luck among other white qualifier a job in a small factory but the discrimination stigma follows him in the work place (Rothenberg 18). As much as he was capable and willing to work there was no one willing to show him around to understand the procure in the working area. This is not only with the elderly, Pease the thirty five years old man, but also to the younger men who have assumed the same character of racism. He is left with no say for he is stranded.
Though the boss had ordered the rest of team player to assist him, tutor him, and also give him jobs they could not stand doing that because of their ego and scene of superiority. After some time of working he takes up the courage to ask for assistance and the respond he gets, is that which he is seen to take up the places of the white men, which makes him loss the work enthusiast but still he can’t quite. His salary is also something to question about, getting a wage of twenty dollars a month could not uphold the living of a family. In comparison to the other workers in the factory his pay was basically set on a discriminatory base since he was black and termed inferior. Placing a thought on his salary, and him working for over eight hours a day will leave him no time to have another job, while the salary remains demeaned. He does a thing which he thinks is noble and dignified, standing up to them supervisors and spoke out, just to make the statement ring a bell as he looks for a place in the working place. He surely hoped this will have a great receptive but it turned out just like he grew things happening in the community. The response was “Nigger, you think you’re white, don’t you?” and without a doubt thing was left to flow the white man’s way.
Class
As human there is no other thing in life that make us live, more than the fact we are living to achieve something. The instinct is what makes us as people maintain the zeal to achieve that which we don’t have or rather that which we desire and this will direct us to be the best that we can get. As we approach all the basils of life it has become like a battle of the fittest a land of the white and a home of the strong. The strongest in terms of color and money will definitely be living long and also have the best that life can offer (Rothenberg 58). The form at which this day’s people use to attack a person or a group is the verbal tactic to instill discrimination and abuse over and over again. In this case the prejudice will still be based on the race they are from but at the same time the class will have significant influence to the kind of social treatment offered.
The same old strategy of racism is introduced only affecting it in a completely different turn, where the a certain group of people or certain persons are used by other malicious people as they climb the ladder of life, work and the social status. Individuals have created labels that are even named, to segregate themselves from those that are ‘seen’ not to meet their standard. The social classes are a form of internal protection mechanism for that which they do not want others to know that they fear and at time a self convinced booster.
For the longest time ever, known to man power has been a thing that has continually abused and has caused fights and disagreements going back all the way to the ancient times. Almost ever body if not all persons want to be at the top of the social latter, because the splendor of being mentions as part of the grouping will sound so appealing and powerful. With such a sugar coated combination of authority and appeal will make one, look good in the face of the others and everyone will want to be around them or associated with. A certain class especially that which is of power and prestige will always be the envy of the town (Rothenberg 59). This places the ‘inferior’ society in a hard place as they try to find a way through to the top, but the struggles that they are subjected to by the society of the superior class make it more than difficult to make to the top or upgrade their status.
The author in this book clearly spotlights to us all the humiliation he had to go through from elementary school, middle school, high school and even when he graduated to college things never changed at all, the stigma of his class still followed his fate. His personality was the kind that when he wanted something one, is the best and he stops at nothing to achieve it at all cost. With the current situation being at hand the road was no easy to run along with his dreams ant school, since she found the strong and the mighty children whose dreams were already established by the wealth of their families. As a young girl with dreams of changing her life and that of her family she had to make a pleasant appeal to the “popular group” so that she can make it through day after day in school. After some time of making a show to be appreciated and accepted by the popular group, she still couldn’t be like them and at the end of the day she went home to their poverty and statues deficiency homes. As time went by being liked by the self declared popular group was not enough for her to meet her goals and now she wanted to be among the “popular group” member, so that she can increase her chances to a better life and the likelihood of all her problem will be gone and their life would make a turn overnight.
Gender
When if come to demography, gender has been the most cause form of discrimination due to behavior and character. The prejudicial treatment given to black men is so evident in the life of the author. This will involve the leaving out or the restraint a certain sex from opportunity openings and freedom that are readily available to the other group of people. As these biased behaviors take different forms they will all involve rejection and denunciation of some form.
All the black Negroes that lived in the south clearly knew the implication that come with being caught alone after the sun set, in the streets of the white neighborhood but a white stranger and precisely a white man can pass on his way at whatever time he wants unmolested. The skin color of the black man acts as an alarming bell and easily recognizable and thus making him a suspect in the neighborhood and within no time this converts him into a powerless target of all evil.
However, there has existed discriminatory laws of all kinds like the redlining in different states to try cub the redress harmful effects that come with this kind of inequity, but this still has not stopped people from constantly maintaining different classes of standards in the society. This is typical translated that racism in all form of whether gender or the social classes established in any society will never end. Racism could be practiced in different terms, but in general their base always lies under the umbrella of discrimination and inequity (Rothenberg 62). All this is because of the different social and moral traits that one is born with in the different race one is in. the discrimination of a persons or a group is what creates about the dissimilar social classes in the society. Whether it’s the discrimination of men against woman at the work place or rather the judgment of the behavior of a black man in the streets due to skin color all adds up to a strong word, which carries a lot of weight from the history called racism.
Works cited
Rothenberg, Paula S. Race, class, and gender in the United States: an integrated study. Chicago, IL: Worth Publishers, 2004.