Racial Relations and Color Blindness

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Table of Contents

Status of Minorities
Colorblindness in California
Conclusion
Works Cited

Every country has some rules and legislation that provides its citizens with certain security and regulations that guarantee a normal life. However, the real situation appears to be quite the opposite from what should the government provide its population with.

In this respect, we can see cases of discrimination though it is claimed to have been fought in the same time when Martin Luther King delivered his speech about the necessity of being more tolerant and patient and not treating people of other races as minorities. The history made the United States of America a multinational state where different languages and religious beliefs are brought from all over the world to contribute to the overall image of the country and enrich its culture.

Time passed and people were still coming to the United States to find some appropriate conditions for their families, education for their children, and more advantageous job opportunities. However, the real situation happened to be not as bright and prosperous as people believed.

Status of Minorities

The Civil Rights Act was aimed at outlawing racial discrimination which still persists in the form of racial inequality.

Education

Many people that live in the United States of America experience racial inequality regardless of the claims that this phenomenon was claimed to have been removed from the theory and practice. However, many people face difficulties related to their housing opportunities and educational problems. This does not mean that children of immigrants do not want to receive education – racial discrimination results in much more complicated issues such as lack of educational institutions on the territory of the neighborhoods inhabited by immigrants. Is not this inequality?

I believe that this can be considered the most vivid example of racial inequality when people are doomed to live in neighborhoods chosen for them on the bases of racial discrimination principles. As reported in the documentary series Unnatural Causes, the rate of uneducated children that experience violence or become witnesses of violence in the street is very high due to the neighborhood and inability of authorities to provide all people with appropriate living conditions making no exceptions.

Children are not educated, they lack self-esteem and self-confidence, and they have no plans for future. As experts explain about such children, they make plans concerning what to wear for their funerals instead of thinking about their graduation and more perspective outcomes (“Unnatural Causes” n.p.).

In other words, there is no chance for these children to become good loving parents for their own children as the rate of violence and other external factors are not encouraging at all; hence, people do not make plans to be ready for losses. The situation in society would not permit them to realize their plans to any degree.

Health

Health is one of the most burning issues of the contemporary society. The global community makes attempts to consolidate people all over the world and fight the danger of fatal illnesses and viruses. However, the cases that take place in the racially marked neighborhoods of the united states of American such as “Richmond, California, a predominantly Black city in the San Francisco Bay Area” (“Unnatural Causes” n.p.) demonstrate lack of attempts to improve the health of the population.

Besides, it is unclear whether the authorities do nothing with the health of the population due to the race inequality or they have simply failed to provide certain areas with adequate health care services. In this respect, health policies and programs aimed at improvement of health care services provided to the population of another race and ethnicity than white non-Hispanics seem to have failed.

As reported in the documentary series Unnatural Causes, “Segregation and lack of access to jobs, nutritious foods, and safe, affordable housing” (n.p.) can be considered the major factor that contribute negatively to the overall situation with the health of people including residents that have been living in inappropriate neighborhoods for years and even decades and new-comers who experience the pressure of this negative environment.

Health of these people reduces their lives. The major reason for shorter life period of people from disadvantaged neighborhoods is the conditions that reduce their lives. People think about the lack of job opportunities, inappropriate health care services, and lack of educational institutions which causes constant stress and worsens their health.

Sociocultural factors

Though sociocultural issues can be considered the main aspect of the cultural diversity that can be used for benefit of the society and organizations, people often fail to understand this concept adequately and treat it in the same way they treat their own cultural cues. In this respect, sometimes people lack tolerance and patience to learn differences and comprehend the relations between cultural cues typical of one ethnic group and their actions in a certain setting.

When we do not understand something, we try either to learn it better to know how to treat it. At the same time, people may fail to express sufficient understanding; they can express animosity instead.

The situation in disadvantaged neighborhoods is difficult to change though people can make efforts such as performed by the people in the High Point in West Seattle where “Community members, local government and developers took a radical approach in rebuilding this neighborhood – using federal funding to create a mixed-income community with health as its focus” (“Unnatural Causes” n.p.).

In this respect, race matters only for those who got used to stereotypes and biases instead of establishment of new unbiased relations with other community members.

So, the definition of racism is instructive because it marks people of other colors of skin than white and other ethnicities than non-Hispanic as those considered victims of this phenomenon in society. However, any expression of preference or discrimination can be considered racism in contemporary society due to multiculturalism spread all over the globe.

Colorblindness in California

Though California can be considered one of the most multicultural areas on the territory of the United States of America, it can also be treated as the place where people suffer from open discrimination regardless of political claims about tolerance and integrity.

Civil rights

People are discriminated due to their racial belonging in all parts of the world. This can be considered one of the burning issues of contemporary society with regard to a number of factors that contribute to the overall situation in every separate state and the global community in general.

The book Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California written by Daniel Martinez HoSang helps people to understand the problem of racial inequality to the extent of its essence because authorities try to make things look better than they appear to be in the real life. In this respect, people in California are treated with regard to their race taking into account numerous acts, policies, and programs aimed at development of clear and unbiased social relations.

All attempts to cover or even reduce the open demonstrations of discrimination were made in order to lull the vigilance of active opponents and make the country more attractive for immigrants who did not even think about possibility of being discriminated in one of the most democratic countries in the world. HoSang in his book about the history of race in California describes speeches and public claims made to reduce the opposition:

Bowron’s pronouncement echoed the calls of dozens of other civic unity, “human relations,” and “fair play” organizations across the state and around the country during this period; Los Angeles alone was home to twelve such organizations or coalitions by 1944. (ch. 1)

Every such pronouncement reduced the efforts of opposition and made people believe that everything would become better than it was and discrimination would not exist anymore. Though Brown has indicated that “we have no master race” (HoSang ch.1), there are still numerous instances of discrimination and racial inequality in California as well as all over the world.

Colorblindness

Such notions as colorblindness were supposed to make people free from discrimination and society free from biases and racial inequality. However, some people consider this to be one of the major obstacles on the way to multicultural society with specific needs and traditions. In this respect, the “…key signifiers [such as] rights, freedom, opportunity, progress, etc….” (HoSang ch.1) can be considered the greatest concepts of liberalism while people failed to implement those theoretical issues into practice.

Often people fail to perform the commitments they have toward their families and communities; the same happens when politicians say certain things and promise to do something whereas the real situation shows their real actions and intentions that stand behind those actions.

Though “Murphy warned of the ‘exaltation of any race, or nationality as superior to all others’,” (HoSang ch.1), people persist to do things claimed to be negative and inappropriate. This means that there is no color blindness in California as well as in every other area of the earth due to certain peculiar features of human being exercised toward each other.

Every person is free to choose what attitude to express toward other people regardless of their being opponents or members of the same community. This can be considered one of the drawbacks of the liberalism and its major keys.

With regard to all facts mentioned above it is necessary to ask if people are ready to enjoy the freedoms of liberalism that is supposed to ensure freedom though should not restrict people in their desires and beliefs. It is natural that some people can experience biases against representatives of other ethnic groups though this should not be the reason to deprive them of their democratic freedom to choose whom to make friends with.

Real motives of political decisions

The racial hierarchy of people in California is the main issue that should be solved. In spite of positive connotations of the language of the latest propositions made concerning the racial inequality policies, these acts are aimed at development and support of already flourishing racial discrimination typical of this area. Racial liberalism can be treated as an attempt to regulate the situation that has become obvious in California.

Though the concept of racial blindness is urgent for the population of California that suffers from disadvantaged position, the policies are aimed at stronger restriction of rights and freedoms of people so that they could not oppose the conditions and limitations imposed o them by authorities.

Thus, white supremacy can be still observed in terms of hierarchy of races in California. Every claim made against the racial inequality that is supposed to defend the rights of discriminated people can be potentially aimed at bringing racially supreme people to the top.

Conclusion

People all over the world suffer from hunger and diseases whereas the problem of discrimination that should have been solved many years ago is still urgent for population of one of the most liberal countries of the globe. In this respect, people claim that the racial inequality should be reduced and eliminated from the community. However, the actual claims made by politicians and other representatives of political and social power prove to be aimed at changing the racial hierarchy in California in negative sense.

Every person can become color blind in terms of racial biases and discrimination though people cannot be deprived of their liberal powers given to them by political regime of democracy that is known for freedoms and rights imposed on population. The categories of people that have to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods suffer from the liberties and freedoms because they do not have sufficient resources and power to fight the situation; so, their children have to breathe toxic air and go to schools full of violence.

Works Cited

Hosang, Daniel. Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2010.

“Unnatural Causes.” California Newsreel, 2008. Web. http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/episode_descriptions.php?page=5

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