Black
men got the right to vote in 1870, and women got the right to vote in 1920.
Both these events were important in history in rewarding rights to two major
groups who got discriminated against daily, sadly however many people still
continued to have prejudices against groups that are different from themselves.
Institutionalized racism and the ideology of sexism have embedded itself into
our nations roots. Bias school funding, programs like affirmative action, and
police hostility towards blacks are just a few things that prove discrimination
is a problem today.
Every school gets a different amount
of funding, but if you look at the numbers, many schools within wealthier areas
are offered more money, even if they have fewer students. In New York City
even, public schools on the Upper East Side often receive more funding than
schools in neighborhoods like Canarsie in Brooklyn. The Upper East Side is a
very wealthy area, and is also predominantly white. Students living in Canarsie
are not getting the money to have things like sports teams, or even art
classes, but kids in the Upper East do, even though they probably already have
the money to do those activities.
Affirmative action is a program that
helps underprivileged and discriminated against high school students get into
colleges with good programs to overall help the youth in America. This program
looks for kids who may live in bad neighborhoods and go to not so great
schools, but still worked very hard in their school. The fact that affirmative
action even exists in the United States proves that discrimination does too. If
everyone had truly equal opportunity and no one had bias, then a program like
this wouldn’t need to be implemented.
Another important issue dealing mainly
with just racial discrimination is police brutality specifically towards black
men. Trayvon Martin was a young man, not even in his 20s, who was shot and
killed by a policeman because he seemed “suspect” pretty much solely based on
the fact that he was black and wearing a hoodie. If he was white, this most
likely would not have occurred. Since then, police brutality has not at all
ended, and because of such a flare up of instances that harmed blacks, it
started the campaign Black Lives Matter. In New York City, one of the most
racially diverse cities in this country, this is a problem still. Stop and
frisk, a program in which police officers may stop anyone and search them, has
been found to only stop black men (or mainly.) The prejudice and stereotypes
against blacks cause all of these events to occur.
Growing up as a girl in the 21st
century isn’t always the easier thing. With the feminism movement to get more
equality across the board, women have showed many places they are robbed of
their rights. I have been playing soccer since I was three years old, and it
had always been a passion of mine and something I thrived in. When I was in 8th
grade, all the boys in my middle school were talking about the new soccer team
that the school was talking and how excited they were for it. I asked around to
find the name of the teacher and once I did I immediately went to go ask him if
I could join the team. When I asked, he laughed a little, and in a state of
confusion I asked what was so funny. He told me I couldn’t play for the team
because it was a boy’s team, not a girls one. Not only was this a violation of
Title 9, but it was also very frustrating. Turned down from doing one of my
favorite things, simply because I was a girl.
Although discrimination is a clear
problem in society, many people are blind to the issue. Some argue that since
students are many difference races make up a school, there is not
discrimination in that place because they all are going there and getting the
same opportunities. However this is not always the case. We can’t know
everything that happens in every school in the U.S., but if it is anything like
the world outside of the school doors, then there is discrimination of some
type. Whether its certain programs getting more funding than others, or kids
forming groups based on economic status or race, I can guarantee that in almost
all cases someone in that school has felt some type of discrimination.
Is there discrimination against
blacks? Yes. Is there discrimination again women? Yes. Is there discrimination
again Latinos? Against Asians? Against Muslims? And even against men? Yes.
America is one of the most diverse countries in the world, yet discrimination
run deep in our core, and that is something that is practically impossible to
erase.
