Introduction
I was born and raised in the State of Minnesota and I grew up in Eden Prairie, a predominantly white upper-class suburb. The fact that I’m white has not prevented me from noticing that the State has a wide racial disparity on various fronts which include education, health, and opportunities. Minnesota has for a long time taken pride in that it has upheld a tradition of progress and that it was once as far as equity and inclusion were concerned. It was a state that led the fronts about equal opportunities and justice to all and was very fair in race matters. This has changed slowly over time and now Minnesota is just like all the other states with a racial disparity that is widely seen by the public.
Racial disparity in Minnesota
In as far as education is concerned, there is concern that the whites are the only people excelling in this field. This is because as much as 93 percent of the whites in high school will graduate, while only 55 percent of black students graduate, 55 percent of the Latinos, and 64 percent of the Native Americans graduate. It is also worrying to find that about 86 percent of Asian Pacific Islanders have graduated while only 45 percent while in the Twin Cities only 45 percent of Hmong have graduated from high school. This kind of disparity has seen to it that the whites are favored when it comes to education and when you put in the bigger picture, you get to see why only whites enjoy the well-paying jobs in the state (Organizing Apprenticeship Project).
As far as health insurance is concerned, it is also discouraging to see that majority of whites have health insurance while only a few percentages of the other races have health insurance. Statistics have it that while it is only 5.9 percent of whites do not have health insurance, 12.8 percent of the blacks, 34.2 percent of Latinos, 21 percent of Native Americans, and 9.8 of Asian-Pacific Islanders do not have health insurance. This shows that the whites are again favored on these fronts while the most discriminated against are the Latinos. This can explain why other races except the whites visit the emergency rooms in most numbers at various hospitals in the State of Minnesota. It is also disturbing to note that Latinos and Native Americans are agonizing in the racial disparity in the state (Organizing Apprenticeship Project).
Employment is another issue because due to limited education that is extended to the other races, white has better bargaining power. This is why you find the whites living in better conditions rather than their counterparts of the other races. This can be rooted in the disparity that is evidenced at the education level with only the majority of those who excel academically being the whites. This can also explain why most of the eleven tribal reservations have a higher level of poverty than the whole of Minnesota combines. This means that in actuality the resources are racially distributed and the beneficiaries are the whites (Organizing Apprenticeship Project).
In my neighborhood, there have started cropping up immigrants from Somali. Racialism is highly notable in my neighborhood since the Somali immigrants started arriving and they are seen as they are capable of doing anything wrong at any moment. The situation is so bad that the community is now living in suspicion. Much as we would like to make the state an equal opportunity state, the Somalis have no chance of having an equal opportunity. Many Somalis cannot access educational facilities and this will manifest in the future when some Somalis will have low-wage employment if lucky while most of them will be jobless. In matters of health insurance, unless the administration comes up with a radical change, the situation on the ground is that these people will never have health insurance in their lifetimes. The administration must come with with a mechanism in which all legal Somali immigrants be granted health insurance.
On the social scene, things are looking no better with widespread suspicion towards the Somalis being the order of the day. Students in various schools cannot freely interact with the Somalis because they fear what their friends will say. To curb this vice that is slowly rotting our State, the administration, the parents, school fraternity, and social fraternity have to change their attitude towards minorities. This will ensure that our children will grow knowing no racial boundaries and will also acknowledge the fact that everybody has rights that should be protected by the law. In the same respect, the government should make efforts to end the racial disparities that are threatening to spoil the image of the United States of America. It is a disgrace to society if some are considered to have superior rights to others. The minorities themselves also have a task in fighting for their rights and also ensuring that they work hard in order to attain the same status as the majority.
Works Cited
Organizing Apprenticeship Project (2008). Web.