About Race and Minorities

In the United States, race is a socially constructed idea

In the United States, minorities such as African-Americans, Mexicans, and Asians often face racial tensions. The word “people of color” is often used in general and academic works to demonstrate how African-Americans and other non-white persons distinguish from whites. However, recognizing the sense of race as a societal concept necessitates a thorough understanding of how individuals of various skin colors intersect, affect other spheres, facets of culture, and community, and devise a plan to dismantle it. What all people should recognize is that race is a socially constructed idea and African-Americans should be judged the same and have equal standards as the whites based on merit rather than their skin.

The problem of discriminating African-Americans

According to Guthrie (2011), the problem of discriminating African-American arose from the slavery and the mindset that white people are superior than the blacks have been propagated over and over even to the present generation by institutionalization. As such, race is a concept that should be scrapped off from the American society. All people in America should have the freedom to critique others and take responsibilities without taking into consideration their skin color. Guthrie supports the thought that there should not be a vocabulary like “African-American” in literature since the term has resulted in wrong categorization of certain ethnicities in the country. The problem should be eliminated by first addressing the American obsession with political correctness (Guthrie 1). In other words, no person should be given preferential treatment.

The abolition of Black History Month

More importantly, the blacks in America need to abolish Black History Month since such holidays perpetuate the historical idea of slavery and racism against the people of color. Although there are still considerable issues of discrimination of the African-American, celebrating the Black History Month is not an approach that should be used to address the matter or gain equality (Guthrie 1). What the people require is civil right movement to sensitize every American about importance of societal coherence. In other words, there that there should be more efforts similar to the Black History Month to dismantle divisive mindset and inappropriate social constructs regarding people of color in America (Guthrie 1). Specifically, it is fundamental to conserve ethnicity just like Du Bois suggested. Du Bois strongly believes that the difference in color has no scientific basis. In other word, the distinct ethnicities have no biological background and it only a social concept that has developed over the years in the minds of people. The scholar further holds that Negroes have role to play in delivery of message against stereotypes related to inferiority of people of color. African-American and the whites have a responsibility to work together by forming social organizations to communication their stance over this issue effectively (Appiah 25). Duis further affirm that working together black people could achieve a lot and accepts that there are existing differences among different groups of people. That is white and black races should not be seen as superior and inferior groups respectively by as complimentary.

Addressing racism and discrimination in the United States

Further, Guthrie indicates that the US should be a country that accepted people from all backgrounds and nationalities. In other words, racism is never to be considered as a factor for characterizing the society and should not be used to propagate stereotypes about African-Americans. Each person in America is entailed to equal attention from the other individuals, government, and institutions. As Kivel (2015) suggests, uprooting racism and discrimination on the basis of color is an important step that will significantly contribute to addressing the matter since it is deeply rooted in the American society. The problem is considerably huge and cannot be ignored. As Guthrie states, ideas such as affirmative action should be dismissed because they “give preferential treatment to American minorities” (Guthrie 1). It is difficult to get rid of the fact that African Americans are black and Caucasians are white as well as other minority groups have their unique colors. Therefore, racism is a social construct that creates formal and informal rules about what people see and how to act and treat other people. Dubois suggests it is possible to teach these different individuals how they can contribute towards building of society using their racial groups (Kivel 3). Each ethnicity can use the tag it is given to deliver the message which together with other individuals can complement each other to achieve a common goal. The statement is properly supported by Guthrie asserting “it is only when this is a real possibility that persons from all ethnic backgrounds can engage in a dialogue about solving issues affecting the totality of the American citizenry” (Guthrie 1).

Racism is a socially constructed idea

Indeed, racism is socially constructed idea that whites are superior to African-Americans which should not be used a base for passing judgment. The problem is one of the most important things that theorists, activists, and scholars must address the matter by encouraging the members of the society to confront it. The white and black people need to work together to address the issue for the United States to realize other crucial benefits such as increase education. In other words, each person in the country is equal to the others regardless of the color of skin. No individuals should received special treatment and all people should be getting similar measure of fairness and justice. Americans need to work collectively to raise voices of minorities and mitigate the effects racial categorization and racism have on people and society at large Therefore, all people in the United States are Americans regardless of their skin color.

Works Cited

Appiah, Anthony. “The uncompleted argument: Du Bois and the illusion of race.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 12, no.1, 2015, pp. 21-37.

Guthrie, Hanna. _x0093_Black History Month?_x0094_ New University. Library History Buff Blog, 22 Feb. 2010. Web. 10 October 2017.

Kivel, Paul. Uprooting Racism-: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice. New Society Publishers, 2017.