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Ryan DeLuca
April 7th, 2019
ENG 123
Dr. Drown
Is there a solution to racism?
Race has been an issue all around the world and there seems to be no definitive way to stop it. I examined multiple sources to try and come to a conclusion if race is even real and what ways people think about race that relate to reality and finally what it would take to put a stop to racism.
After watching and listening to the documentary called the whiteness project I was shocked to hear that this is how millennials think about race, a lot of them acknowledged that there is a bias white being more favored over blacks one person from the Whiteness Project named Connor who is white pointed out that he would have been in prison if he wasn’t white he also thinks the reason the hammer hasn’t been brought down on him is because he’s white, Connor says “I always kind of knew that if I got in trouble I could get a lawyer, suit up, show up and it would be a slap on the wrist.” Connor has been arrested multiple times for possession of drugs but has never gotten charged or put in jail. Another person from the whiteness project voiced his opinion on race his name is Wade, he says “The people that say the most awful things that I’ve ever heard in person are those people, are those white people that get drunk and sit at my bar and spout off nonsense and makes me really disappointed that I have to be lumped into the same category as them.” From Wades point of view, he is disappointed that he is categorized the same as the drunk people who speak gibberish at his bar Wade probably reaps the benefits of being white without knowing but if he had any control over it he would probably give up those benefits.
There is another documentary that was created in response to the whiteness project called The Blackness Project. The Blackness project is made the same way the whiteness project was created minus the white people, it was created by interviewing black people and getting their opinions on what they think about race in American and where they think the issue is. In this documentary some shared their personal experiences of racial inequality, a woman named Verniece says “If you go into a bunch of folks, you’ll realize that we work just as hard if not harder, because often times my grandfather said you gotta be twice as good in order to get half the credit.” Verniece grew up in the racially divided America of the 60’s she experienced firsthand racial inequality especially in the workplace, when she was growing up like Verniece stated blacks had to put in double the effort in order to get partial credit, we have come along way at combatting that issue, but we still have some ground to cover. All of this racial inequality among workplaces and other places has caused the black community to try and change the way they are portrayed by covering their true self and showing and over the top very professional clean as a whistle man or woman as a statement. A man named Ramon Ray has a story it is about his as a business entrepreneur, he dresses business casual because he wants to look professional but that didn’t stop people from profiling him as “The Help”, white people also profile black men as “Menacing” or violent so to combat this he started keeping his distance from white woman in particular in order to make sure he isn’t disturbing the peace just by minding his own business. Verniece adds to this by stating, “I always knew that we were black, and I had an obligation and a responsibility to conduct myself in a most skillful way and that is one thing that I am grateful for and being raised in a family that was conscious of not only our selves but the society in which we operated in.” In order to maximize the chances of success, black families had to raise their children with high standards set to ensure their children have a chance to break past the racial barriers. If raising your kids to the highest standards don’t seem to be breaking down racial barriers, what will it take for racism to be done with?
One person seems to have the answer, his name is Steve Olson and he wrote an article about how mixed Hawaii is and if racial mixing would solve the problem of race he also talked about is race is genetic or if it’s mythological. In his article stated Hawaii’s high rate of intermarriage has painted the picture in our heads that in order for racial tensions to diminish everyone would need to be racially mixed. But Steve Olson proved this to be wrong Olson says, “Despite the high rate of intermarriage here, ethnic and racial tensions haven’t really disappeared.” Although Hawaii has the highest rate of intermarriage people still think that there racial mixing is better than someone else’s racial mixing someone may be mixed with people that have had power in the past or be related to royalty, some people think the more mixed you are the better you are even though they all may have started in the same spot and more than likely have similar racial mixing. This makes the argument that mixing everyone racially would solve the racism, it really wouldn’t, a new issue would arise, yes we would all look alike but some would be mixed more than others and they would use that to their advantage.
