Essay/Term paper: Blacks: a struggle for racial equality

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Literary Essays

Blacks: A Struggle for Racial Equality


Almost everyone would like to have racial equality in the world today.
It is often said that all people have been created equally. That is true,
however sometimes not everybody is treated equally. In society, blacks are
still struggling for racial equality.

We should note that in the 1940'1, blacks were not considered equal to
the whites. We see this in The Power of One . Blacks could not socialize with
whites. P.K. a young boxer asks the manager at the gym how he gets away with
mixing blacks and whites. The manager says that outside the ring a black man is
not equal, inside he is but not in public, only in private. This clearly
demonstrates how blacks were not treated equally to whites in the 1940's.

We also see this in society today. We are able to see how blacks are
looked upon when we examine a quote from The Runner , a novel by Cynthia Voigt.
"If there's one thing I can't tolerate Pete agreed "it's an uppity nigger."2 We
can see that Bullet, a cross country runner is talking to a team-mate named Pete.
It is indisputable that Pete has some antagonism towards blacks. He treats
them with very little respect and uses the racist term "nigger." This helps to
justify that blacks are treated with considerably less appreciation than other
races of people.

Let us also look at the fact that blacks are often socially outcasted
because of their race. We see this in The Runner. "You're telling me you won't
work with him because he's a negro?" "That's right."3 As we can see the above
exert clearly shows how the black person was outcasted. Bullet's coach asked
him to train with another person on the team but Bullet refused to train with
him because he is black.

Another quote that shows how blacks are still in a struggle for racial
equality is in short commentary, A Fair World for All by Dorothy Canfield
Fisher:

"Suppose that you are in a market or food shop buying
things to eat. Everybody is relaxed and easy, standing
around waiting for his turn to buy. All of a sudden a big
snake crawls along the beam of the roof and drops down
amongst the shoppers. You don't need anybody to tell
you how most of the crowd will scream and rush for the
door..."4

This was a perfect analogy used by the author to explain racial inequality. If
the snake was black, nobody would scream or run out but we can easily get the
message how we are sometimes narrow-minded towards people of other races.

We are clearly able to see that blacks are still struggling for racial
equality if we examine an exert from an article that compares blacks' salaries
to those of whites.

"Blacks-regardless of their academic credential or skills
earn substantially less than their white counterparts.
For each dollar earned by a white working fulltime,
Asians made 82 cents, blacks averaged 74 cents..."5

As we can see, the above quote clearly shows that blacks are still in the
struggle for racial equality. These statistics were put from a survey based on
1989 wages and salaries. This helps to prove that blacks still have to strive
for equality.

Therefore, in society blacks are still struggling for racial equality.
In the 1940's, blacks were not considered equal. If we examine the general
public today, they have not made enough progress, they are sometimes socially
outcasts and they are also paid less that whites and Asians. If we all work
together, we can put an end to the discrimination that exists today.

ENDNOTES

1. The Power of One. Directed by Arnon Milchan, movie, colour. Screenplay by
Robert Mark Kamen.

2. Cynthia, Voigt, The Runner (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), p.57

3. Voigt.p.93

4. "A Fair World for All" in Collier's Junior Classics: Harvest of Holidays, ed.
Ruth Weeden Stewart (New York: The Crowell Collier publishing company, 1962),
p.278.

5. Author is anonymous, "Blacks get Smaller Salary Payoff for Education,
Califonia Study Reveals" Jet, Feb. 1, 1993, p.29.