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'Smart People' Ask Hard Questions About Racism in America

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'Smart People' Ask Hard Questions About Racism in America

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There are people that believe they are very progressive and sophisticated when it comes to racism, in America. Some of these people feel a sense of pride when they express their opinions on the topic. Yet still a lot of these people are no help. It is great that there are a lot of attempts to change the racially unsafe environments but in the end a lot of it is no help. It does not actually do change and do good, but just give more pride to those who tried to fix a problem too big for themselves. It is not known if is programmed in our brains or if it is just mere stubbornness to change, bur racism in America is existent and the sooner EVERYONE becomes comfortable to make an effort, the sooner it will die off.

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The topic of this article is equity in the work force of NH. Matthew J. Mowry tells of New Hampshire's push for a more equal, comfortable work force that takes in anyone if they are fit for the job. This article mentions the level of comfort a white person has when discussing their white privilege, and it's low. Once this topic is dealt with and understood, and the conversation about racism is had, leaders of businesses should feel more comfortable in recognizing where there are racist mistakes made in their companies. This ties into the essential question because it shows an attempt of "moving forward" as a society. If the companies in New Hampshire that experienced the Endowment of Health invitational retreat really went back and straightened it up in their individual places of work, that right there is already improvement. But we also see a sense of "moving sideways" in this article because it really tells the reader that we have not made this effort to be comfortable discussing something that has been alive forever, white privilege. And this article was just about New Hampshire in 2015, so many other states still have this issue and need to discuss and change it.

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Which Is More Racist, Texas or New Hampshire?

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Which Is More Racist, Texas or New Hampshire?

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Racism affects places with a decent sized population of black people more, but it is seen in places with less black people, more often. The quality of life between white people and black people is much better down in the south or in large cities where there tends to be a greater population of African Americans. Why? Because it is more awkward when somebody white sees somebody black in places like New Hampshire just because it does not happen often. You cannot justify or explain the level of awkwardness that flows between an interaction of the sort but it is there and it is prominent. From personal experience Jim Schutze explains that seeing or hearing racist comments is not only more abundant in New England, but the reaction to it is minimal. It flies over people's heads because they know they most likely will not have to talk to someone black about it.

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A small dagger pierced my heart when my wife told me our 27-year-old son's reaction to the news story she had emailed him about the n-word-using police commissioner in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. He emailed her back: "Wow. Way up there."

I took that to mean that our fifth-generation native-Texan son had internalized the lesson preached to him his entire life by film and literature, that vile racism is a mainly Southern phenomenon. As a person who grew up in the North myself, including a stint of several years in New Hampshire, I know way better.

I wrote here a long time ago about mean-spirited racial segregation and racism I experienced first-hand growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Home to the University of Michigan since 1837, Ann Arbor when I was growing up there referred to itself immodestly as the "Athens of the Middle West." In the 1960s people from Ann Arbor were on the Freedom Rider buses that crashed into Jim Crow Dixie.
See also: Crossing Division Street
No one ever discussed the fact that Ann Arbor at that time was still rigidly segregated, chopped in half by a thoroughfare called Division Street. A black male who crossed that street without a rake or a shovel in his hand had trouble ahead with the cops for sure. Think of our own "Park Cities" district but all over town.

And New Hampshire! I lived there, too. When I was a kid, New Hampshire in particular, New England in general, gave whole new meaning to the word redneck. Still does, apparently. New Hampshire hicks were racist about French Canadians, and that was just a warm-up for their feelings about U.S. ethnic minorities.

I get a little uncomfortable trying to compare different specific brands of American racism by region, just because it seems like debating how many devils can dance on the head of a pin. Racism is racism. But I can say this. There is an appreciable difference between the racism of Southern whites who have lived around lots of black people and isolated rural Northern whites who have not. At least the Southern whites are not physically terrified by the sight of black people on their TV sets. That's what that police official in New Hampshire expressed.

The exact quote as reported in a local newspaper was, "No, I don't watch TV because every time I turn it on all I see is that fucking nigger" -- a reference to the president of the United States.

Wolfeboro, New Hampshire Police Commissioner Robert Copeland's problem -- the issue that has now cost him his job, made a goat of him internationally, humiliated his family and sullied the name of his community -- was seeing the president on television. That's a pretty big price to pay for a problem he should have been able to resolve with a couple sessions of group therapy.

It's probably not a truly or entirely regional phenomenon now. I think there are lots of white people here in Texas, in the Old South, the Upper Midwest, New England, the Pacific Northwest, Manhattan, all over, who have managed to live until this late date in environments where they have experienced very little diversity. The particular aspect of diversity they have missed -- and the one that seems to get to them when they turn on their TV sets and see the first family -- is the one in which a black person occupies a position of higher social status than their own. Then it's off to the Wiggy Ward for some of them.

Does the New Hampshire guy have the right to slosh down a couple drinks and use the N-word about the president in an overheard private conversation? Absolutely. Hey, this is America! Does the owner of a professional sports franchise have the right to just keep saying more and more racist stuff to reporters. Totally!

But then the rest of us as Americans have the right to vow never to by a ticket from that team owner and to begin turning away from the whole sport, the more it begins to look like a racist plantation system. Don't want us to stop buying tickets? Well, hey, how about kicking the bastard out of the league for us? The league has the right to do that. This is America!

Personal disclosure: I have a vacation trip planned for New Hampshire in a week, with a bunch of non-refundable reservations. When my wife emailed me that, "I sure hate to be spending money in New Hampshire," I said nothing. Look, they made the old bastard resign. I respect Wolfeboro for that. Plus, we're not going to Wolfeboro. Plus, the reservations are not refundable.

Plus this: I still love New Hampshire. I have a deep affection for the people there. The other side of all that isolation and xenophobia is a flinty self-reliance and deep-rooted sense of personal dignity. Remember that people in New Hampshire turned that guy out of office. People sure are complicated, are they not?

The racism most of us need to worry about anyway is right there in the mirror looking back at us. Nobody has a monopoly. Nobody even has the edge as far as I can tell. If we start with ourselves, we're taking the bull by the horns.

But I have to say this piece, as well: the former Confederate states need to shake off the whole notion that they carry a burden here not shared pretty equally by the Union. We all get why that story persists. It does reflect important history, and we are products of that history.

But this isn't history. This is now. Right now as a result of more recent history, even with our stubborn pockets of mono-ethnic separatism, there's a hell of a lot more true diversity going on in Texas than there is in New Hampshire. Or Oregon. Or TriBeCa, for that matter.

The South should be proud of the strides it has accomplished and the wisdom gained since the civil rights movement days, and it needs to be confidant in its ability to export some of that wisdom northward when needed. Speaking as a Yankee carpetbagger myself, I feel I have the right to say that Yankees need to have their chains yanked about racism every once in a while just like everybody else.

In the end what counts is living together, being together, knowing each other, turning on the TV and seeing people who look like all of us. When what feels normal and appropriate, we don't need any more group therapy.

My son doesn't live in Texas any more. I just want him to know it's a good a place to come home to. Not perfect. Not there yet. But closer than it used to be and a lot closer than New Hampshire any old day.

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Which Is More Racist, Texas or New Hampshire?

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A small dagger pierced my heart when my wife told me our 27-year-old son's reaction to the news story she had emailed him about the n-word-using police commissioner in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. He emailed her back: "Wow. Way up there." I took that to mean that our fifth-generation native-Texan son...

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Between the span of 20 years, 1995-2015, Americans had a fluctuating opinion whether racism was a big issue or not in our country. In 1995, at the end of the OJ Simpson trial and the Rodney King case, 41% of the country believed racism was a big issue. This was the largest number to have that opinion until 2015's recording. Yet in 2011, on 28% of Americans believed that racism was a big issue. Now multiple incidents happened between 2011 and 2015 to redirect that 28% back up. The first event I can think of is Trayvon Martin's shooting, then Eric Garner a father of six, then Michael Brown a college student, Laquan McDonald, 12-year old Tamir Rice... The list goes on and on. Events like this really affect everything that has to do with racism, and it is essentially an answer to the main question: is society going forwards, backwards or sideways with racial equality? According to the statistics society is going sideways a lot. Events like the ones mentioned give a label to police officers, it creates a tension between races, and it tears a whole in the community of the United States. Shootings should not be the only thing to make people aware of racism, it should always be an issue, so it can be demolished sooner. Just like times of the Articles of Confederation: not having an army during times of peace (no declared war) obviously did not work. An army, just like racism, should always be concerned about.

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Their voices are just a few in a country of more than 322 million people. But they are far from alone.

In a new nationwide poll conducted by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly half of Americans -- 49% -- say racism is "a big problem" in society today.

The figure marks a significant shift from four years ago, when over a quarter described racism that way. The percentage is also higher now than it was two decades ago. In 1995, on the heels of the O.J. Simpson trial and just a few years after the Rodney King case surged into the spotlight, 41% of Americans described racism as "a big problem."

Is racism on the rise in the United States? Has our awareness changed? Or is it a problem that's been blown out of proportion?

There's not a one-size-fits-all explanation for the shift. The survey of 1,951 Americans across the country paints a complicated portrait, highlighting some similarities across racial lines and also exposing gaps that seem to be growing.

But this much is clear: Across the board, in every demographic group surveyed, there are increasing percentages of people who say racism is a big problem -- and majorities say that racial tensions are on the rise.

'A different story'

It caught Debora Aust by surprise.

The 48-year-old white woman from Sterling Heights, Michigan, says she didn't expect racism to get worse.

"It always seemed like it was getting better, like our generation was going to be better than previous generations," says Aust, who participated in the CNN/KFF poll. "But the TV started telling us a different story, with all of these shootings by cops."

For Aust, whose father and uncle both work in law enforcement, the news stories she's seen about unarmed African-American men being shot by police have hit home. The officers should be held accountable, she says.

"What's not helping is the police are getting off with a slap on the wrist. ... If it was me, and I was black, and this was happening in my community, I would be furious," she says.

The case of Walter Scott, who was shot in April by an officer in North Charleston, South Carolina, sticks out in her mind. The trial hasn't started yet. The officer's attorney says he plans to plead not guilty, and that race has nothing to do with the case. But Aust has already made up her mind.

"I mean, give me a break, he wouldn't have done that if the man was white, and that's the problem," she says.

It's gotten worse, not better, since the 2008 election of President Barack Obama, says Ellis Onic. The 56-year-old engineer in Balch Springs, Texas, who's African-American, points to the 2012 shooting death of Trayvon Martin and this year's Charleston church massacre as examples. Time and time again, Onic says, the justice system has failed.

"The white man has had his way for so long, they don't think of it as racism. They think that's just the way it is. ... We have a long way to go, because the justice system is not right. Justice is corrupt," he says. "That's why she has the blindfold over her eyes and the scale slightly tilted, so you know that it can go either way."

Jim Bruemmer sees things differently.

The white, 83-year-old retired advertising executive in St. Louis, who participated in the CNN/KFF poll, says media coverage alleging racism -- particularly when it comes to law enforcement officers -- has been overblown.

"I am troubled by the bias I see in the media, that seems to spend all its time talking about the bad policemen and the bad white people and ignoring the crime and the disastrous conditions that are occurring in large segments of the black youth," he says.

Bruemmer says he's had to look no further than a suburb of St. Louis to see that firsthand.

"The belief is so universally held among the people I know, that the whole Ferguson thing was a farce," he says, "that ' hands up, don't shoot' was baloney, that the police officer behaved in a very proper manner and saved his own life, possibly."

Growing racism?

Gauging changes in racial attitudes is complicated, says Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke University. Bonilla-Silva has a phrase he uses to describe the situation he sees today: "new racism."

"After the 1960s and early 1970s, somehow we developed the mythology that systemic racism disappeared," he says.

Racism remained, according to Bonilla-Silva, but became more covert.

"The main problem nowadays is not the folks with the hoods, but the folks dressed in suits," he says.

"New racism," he says, has been decades in the making. But something has changed in recent years -- access to cell phones and social media.

Accusations that police use excessive force, particularly against African-Americans, for example, now can get far more attention -- far more quickly -- than ever.

Communities of color across the country can more easily connect, according to Bonilla-Silva, and people are picking up on patterns that scholars have long discussed.

"People are doing Sociology 101. They can connect Walter Scott, the assassinations of black folks in a church, the slamming of a girl in a school," he says. "And then it's across the nation. People are then connecting the dots and saying, 'No more.'"

Growing awareness?

While the trend of a growing percentage of people viewing racism as a big problem in recent years was true across racial lines in the CNN/KFF poll, the share who see it as a problem is notably higher among blacks and Hispanics.

About two-thirds of blacks (66%) and Hispanics (64%) said racism is a big problem, while just over four in 10 (43%) whites said the same. Hispanics are much more likely now to say racism is a big problem than they were in 1995, when less than half responded that way. Among blacks, the share who said racism was a big problem dropped from 68% in 1995 to 50% in 2011, and now has climbed back to 66%.

Majorities across races said tensions between racial and ethnic groups in the United States have increased in the past 10 years. Roughly a quarter said tensions have stayed the same.

Sometimes the way people view racism can play out like a referee's call in a baseball game, says Glenn Adams, a professor of psychology at the University of Kansas who has studied perceptions of racism.

"Is the guy out or safe? Well, it depends who you're rooting for," he says. "Sometimes it's clear in either direction, but we tend to see it how we want to see it."

It's likely the level of racism in the United States is more or less the same, Adams says.

"What's changed," he says, "is that more people are aware of it."

Knowledge of history, having friends who've experienced racism and personal background are all factors that can contribute to a greater awareness of racism, he says. And now, he says, there's likely another factor at play.

"People are more aware of it because of the videos of police violence and the media attention. Now, the media report on it," Adams says. "Black folks tended to know about this before. Now white folks are starting to know about it more. ... Now, with this kind of evidence, people have to re-evaluate their sense of what is true and what is not true, so it becomes a little bit harder for people to deny."

The same goes for repeated incidents of racism on college campuses, Bonilla-Silva says, like the chant that shuttered a fraternity at the University of Oklahoma and the noose found hanging at Duke this year.

It's impossible to dismiss cases as isolated events, he says, when similar situations at schools and other institutions keep happening again and again.

"The fact that it keeps happening tells you that the problem is not a problem of bad apples," he says, "but perhaps the problem is the apple tree."

'We're all kind of in the same boat'

Because of his complexion, sometimes people think Rick Gonzales is Italian. Sometimes they think he's Mexican or Middle Eastern. The experience, he says, has made him question the meaning of race.

"It's obviously a label. Something tells me that we're all kind of in the same boat, yet we're separated somehow. We're given different names," says Gonzales, a 49-year-old truck driver from San Antonio, who participated in the CNN/KFF poll.

Gonzales' mother is from Mexico and his father is from the United States. He says he feels that for people in power -- most of whom are white -- it's advantageous to pit groups against each other. And to him, it seems like no matter what, darker-skinned people are at a disadvantage. That, he says, is why race -- and racism -- remain big problems.

"The ones that are usually getting the short end of the stick are the so-called minority ... but we're the majority, because we're always the ones who are struggling," he says.

Sheryl Sims, an African-American, 59-year-old retired teacher in Atlanta who participated in the CNN/KFF poll, says that for her, racism is something she senses when she walks down the street in her neighborhood.

"It's just the way people will shun you," she says, "or turn their head when you walk by."

Things were worse 50 or 60 years ago, Alex Sproul says. But now, the 24-year-old, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and participated in the CNN/KFF poll, says he sees racism lurking under the surface.

From wage inequality to accessibility to jobs, Sproul says he feels minorities are still at a disadvantage.

Sproul describes himself as mixed race -- Mexican-American and white. He says several events in recent years have made him feel racial tensions are on the rise.

One of them, he says, was the 2009 shooting death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed African-American man who was fatally shot by a police officer on a Bay Area Rapid Transit platform. Sproul says he first learned about the case when he was scanning his Facebook feed and saw posts from friends.

"You kind of see more of these situations, or extremes," he says. "I don't know if maybe it was going on before and there was no coverage, or if it's happening with greater frequency."

Too much hype?

Bruemmer, the retired advertising executive in St. Louis, says he sees racism as a big problem -- but not for the reason you might think.

Too often, he says, leaders play the race card rather than addressing what he sees as the real issue behind many of the problems popping up in society today: broken families, particularly in the black community.

"The massive problem that I see is that our leaders at the highest level ... do not even want to recognize or even acknowledge that this problem exists, and therefore they spend huge amounts of time demonizing the police force, throwing gasoline and making the problems much worse," he says.

Racism is inevitable in any society, he says. But now, he fears that because of bad leadership, tensions are on the rise among some groups in the United States.

"I think the racism and the hatred of the white race has grown to the point where it's worse than in the other direction. ... I think the anger and the racism is much worse from black to white than white to black," he says.

Searching for common ground

It's hard to draw a clear conclusion when the reasons behind respondents' answers to a survey question can vary so widely, says Mark Naison, a professor of history and African-American studies at Fordham University.

"People may agree that racism is worse," he says, "and disagree profoundly on who the targets and victims are."

"Simmering rage," he says, has been fueled by backlash after Obama's election, the economic struggles of lower- and middle-income whites and demographic shifts across the country.

"Latent racism is becoming more open, because a lot of people are feeling threatened," he says.

But Naison says he's also noticed a significant change in his classes.

"People are able to empathize, communicate and talk honestly across racial lines much better than they did five years ago, and certainly 10 years ago and 20 years ago," he says.

Why? Naison says the changing world students are living in, full of far more multiracial families and friendships, has played a big role. A video of a police beating, he says, resonates for people now because they're not looking at those involved as strangers.

"It's not just that guy over there," he says. "You could be beating my cousin or my boyfriend."

The mix of "simmering rage" and growing empathy is a complicated equation, he says, that adds up to more people talking about race -- and racism.

And it's a conversation, according to Naison, that isn't going away any time soon. If people from different backgrounds can open up about their concerns and find common ground, it could be a good thing, Naison says, like a therapy session on a national scale.

"That conversation is difficult," he says. "But our history is difficult. Our present is difficult. We need to talk about it."

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racism is a 'big problem' to more americans

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Racism is a 'big problem' to more Americans, poll finds - CNN

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Their voices are just a few in a country of more than 322 million people. But they are far from alone. In a new nationwide poll conducted by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly half of Americans -- 49% -- say racism is "a big problem" in society today.

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College Students Are Unprepared to Deal With Racism

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College Students Are Unprepared to Deal With Racism

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Imaani Jamillah El-Burki, a professor at Lehigh University, experienced her students being put in a racist conflict. A multicultural house was egged and intimidated by a group of racist, unnamed individuals, on Wednesday night Nov. 6... last month. Imaani explained that students and young people believe that racist times are in the past, and that they can feel comfortable in a multicultural societal setting. She knew, and confirmed by this experience, that is not the case. She tells how most of her colleagues were alive during the Kennedy-MLK era so they should know how to take action to racism, yet they don't teach about it. They don't help students overcome a racist trouble because they assume it is not existent. Imaani emphasizes that this problem is very existent and requires educators to help those who deal with racism.

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Current college students lack the knowledge foundation to deal with the reality of racism. This has been made evident by a recent incident at Lehigh University. Around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6 a multicultural residence hall, the Umoja House, was egged and vandalized with a series of racial epithets. The actions of these nameless individuals was reminiscent of the overt racism experienced by people of color two or more generations ago; it was an act of terrorism designed to hurt, intimidate and alarm the entire Lehigh community. Furthermore, it became evidence of the serious limitation of our current post-racial "la la land." In the aftermath of this incident, I found that my students, who are socialized to believe the post-racial rhetoric, are not prepared to deal with the continued existence of racial inequality. They are perplexed when the history of racism reveals itself to be very much a part of our present.

Those who adhere to the current trend in dialogue around race would argue that the campus was taken back in time. After all, many believe we no longer live in a world where overt racism, discrimination or racial terrorism shapes the lives of people of color. People no longer see racism--personal, institutional or otherwise-- as an excuse for underachievement, a rationale for special consideration, or a basis for additional societal support. Our current world is one of openness and racial togetherness with equal opportunity to achieve.

It is this rhetoric of racial inclusiveness that has shaped the world of my students. As part of my appointment in the Africana Studies department at Lehigh University, I teach an undergraduate course on media portrayals of race. Two days each week I have the opportunity to teach (and learn from) some of the most open and eager students. These purportedly disengaged Millennials made a conscious decision to study a topic that some would argue is no longer relevant.

The students come to class very optimistic. They are members of a generation that has been taught that it is no big deal for people to be in interracial relationships, and they tend to have some sort of regular contact with those who are different from them. Unlike older generations, they primarily see social class as more of a determinant of marginalization than race and assume racial tolerance and openness. On some level this is very good and must be acknowledged.

And yet we sat in class the Wednesday after the incident and struggled together to figure out how to react and what to do. The vandalism that occurred isn't supposed to happen in America any more. As such, the sort of conversations we should have, the actions we should take and the search for an appropriate response is certainly not part of their "cultural tool kit."

As a person who studies racial portrayals and the social impact, I felt momentarily helpless as I acknowledged that educators in the generation before mine, who were raised during the Cold War and who might remember Kennedy's Voting Rights Act, are now instructing a generation of young people who barely know who Malcolm X is, can recall Che Guevara only because of his image on tee shirts, who do not know about Reagan's War on Drugs, and think that the presence of financially successful Asian immigrants is an indication that America is on the right path. And while I am generalizing, the truth is that the current generation has no language to discuss racial conflict and are nearly helpless to understand, address and respond to continued racism.

I was confused as well. I am the child of parents who grew up at the end of the Civil Rights Movement. And even as I understand it, it is not a part of my direct experience. My position as the child of intellectuals most likely has more to do with my understanding of the United States' racialized history than anything else. I have never encountered what my students woke up to that Wednesday morning and did not know how to handle it.

Right now Lehigh is dealing with blatant and deliberate racism. When I spoke with my students they literally asked me what to do. The white students seemed afraid of appearing racist and the black students seemed afraid of appearing overly sensitive or militant. What the entire group had in common was no historical or contemporary context within which to place this act or even discuss to it.

Post-racial students have been abandoned. When it comes to dealing with issues of race many do not know what to do because it is framed as something that no longer occurs, even as what happened tells us it does. The result of believing that racism doesn't exist is that whenever racist acts or more persistent problems like racial segregation are made obvious, the post-racial generation is required to acknowledge racism in a world where everything provides the opposite message. The students at Lehigh are experiencing a serious disruption to their worldview.

I felt sorry for my students. They were lost and confused. The Civil Rights generation was able to recognize on some level and saw some basis in reality for why people feel racism is an issue, even if they didn't agree. The current generation doesn't have that. Let's protect the next generation by arming them with information. We can do this by teaching them to acknowledge that race matters so that they can effectively fight against racism, and other forms of bigotry, when it appears. This is the only way we will eliminate racism as our social reality for the generations to come.

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College Students Are Unprepared to Deal With Racism

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Current college students lack the knowledge foundation to deal with the reality of racism. This has been made evident by a recent incident at Lehigh University. Around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6 a multicultural residence hall, the Umoja House, was egged and vandalized with a series of racial epithets.

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Toni Morrison, author of "The Amazing, Troubling Book", really expresses her beliefs behind the book, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". What she thinks is the base behind the story is the impact of society. To Morrison, Jim is the safety Huck needs when he is put into a world full of cruelty, racism, and corruption. Huck is the example of a white immigrant (Not Irish or Italian) coming over to America during the later 1800's. Newly exposed to this new world, the influence of society helps him fit in. In the society of the book, you have to be quite racist and cruel. Disregard human life if it's of a colored person, and treat them worse than pets. Morrison exploits this point made in the book and describes her initial reaction to it while reading the book at a young age, then later on in life and the difference in the understanding that came with age.

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This piece of slam poetry is quite powerful for someone to watch/listen to it. Alex Dang explains the usages of stereotypes on Asian people and then he explains all of them and their true meaning. He stares down the racist people in society, calling them out for their actions. Alex Dang's last line, "...and I still, feel." Is most definitely something that can be related to Jim in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". During many times of the book it seems that people, including Huck, do stuff to Jim that could only be done to someone who has no emotions or feelings. Meanwhile Jim proves that wrong when he shows his feelings of anger after people tried to make him look like a fool.

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Alex Dang (Ft. Alex Dang) - What Kind of Asian are You?

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So he said to me: "What kind of Asian are you?" / And I said back: / That's a loaded question. / What kind of Asian do you EXPECT me to be? / Because any way you slice that egg

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In the story of American History, there was a time where the Irish, Roman Catholic Immigrants were treated in a way like they were black. Supremacists wanted them gone because they interbred with their "good", white American females, they would cause a lot of crime in the streets, and they did not practice the same exact religion (even though they all fall under christianity). This document does describe the ways the Irish became "white" or peacefully lived in America. After the job attaining, the political position attaining the civil helpfulness, the Irish did one thing that accepted them more than the rest. The Irish began to treat black people just as every other racist, white American did. It was the most popular tradition in the country so it would gain them more respect than not. They were already the same complexion as the white Americans so all they had to do was act that way and they were in. I am Irish, quite Irish in fact. You can tell by my short height, my devotion to winning an argument, and my ability to tell myself to stop acting like a wimp and tough it out. I am disappointed in my ethnicity (not my relatives because they did not come over until late 1800's--the turn of the century) for just letting themselves fall into the crowd of racists and supremacists that were not doing the country any good. They were taking two steps back for every one step forward abolitionists took.

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“[T]hey steal, they are cruel and bloody, full of revenge, and delighting in deadly execution, licentious, swearers and blasphemers, common ravishers of women, and murderers of children.” —Edmund Spencer

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Although the overuse of the N-word in rap music has given the term a connotation of "dude" or "bro" which would make it acceptable to use in conversation, or to sing along with in the song, this word is still quite an offensive term to many people. According to the project by the Washington post, a man interviewed said it all comes back to hip hop/rap music. He said that this culture has indirectly given a weak pass to all to possess the use of this word in conversation when meanwhile that is really not the case. First, the only pass given to this word, again according to the project, is if you're black. Second, just because it is used in a rap does not mean it is not offensive. In some songs artists have used to word with context around it to make sure people knew it was offensive.

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n-word; donte stallworth; neal brennan; dave chappelle show; nfl; national football leagues bans nword; nfl bans the nword; nigger; nigga; nigger vs nigga; kkk; ku klux klan; jay z; oprah;

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The n-word: An interactive project exploring a singular word

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After the National Football League made the controversial decision to ban the n-word on the field this year, a team of Washington Post journalists explored the history of the word, its evolution and its place in American vernacular today.

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Brian Stevenson is a human rights lawyer who knows a lot about the current justice system. Brian has spoken to Rosa Parks before and learned what someone like that believed in. He is absolutely right in everything he says as he pulls out very significant statistics about the population of African American men incarcerated in the country (1/3)  and how about 34% of the black males in Alabama alone have lost their right to vote. In Stevenson's opinion, the biggest issue nowadays is the combination of misconduct in the courtroom and the exaggerated punishments for drugs. Brian, in court, has seen thirteen year-old boys being tried as adult males. The injustice in the court system makes the United States possess the highest amount of incarcerated people in the world. When race is involved in a case, where jury members or judges or police officers make biased decisions, the black individual being tried will almost be guaranteed time in jail. The whole justice system is out of order and a change in this could actually really change the negative identity put on African Americans as a community, as a race. Currently they have been seen as a people who much more commonly participate in crime while that is only the case because of injustice and/or racist influence.

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Teachers often use TED Talks in the classroom to introduce a lesson topic or to frame a student discussion. Below are 10 TED Talks about race in America - curated by TED-Ed upon educator request - that teachers may find useful in the classroom:
Featured image: Angélica Dass/Humanæ
For more education resources from TED, sign up for the weekly TED-Ed newsletter here >>

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10 TED classroom resources about race in America

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Teachers often use TED Talks in the classroom to introduce a lesson topic or to frame a student discussion.