Amal Kasim

ED 259: Final Assignment

12/10/2021

A History of Racism in America: Why Can't This File Be Closed?

Slavery began early in human history when the strong and the most
knowledgeable enslaved those who were weaker. Slavery exists in another way
in various parts of the world, and it is called simply: racism. While African
Americans have made significant advances in the fields of racial equality and
opportunity. The question is then: "Why?" Racism continues to live because
minds give it life. The marks of racism are pressed upon the minds and outlooks
of both the victims of racism and the people who carry racist views and actions
against others.
America began 400 years ago, when a British company started in Virginia, 20 African
men, and one girl were the first slaves at that time. The blacks in America fought a long
history, a history stained with racism. The blacks in America began as slaves who did
not have any kind of rights. The American states located in the south of America
depended on them all to plant and harvest, and they were also maidservants, and their
children were property from birth. According to "National Geographic in an article
published in 2016, slavery, began in America 400 years ago, and the struggles of blacks
did not succeed in stopping it until the nineteenth century. The Americans rose up in
1765 against the English, and after their revolution, which was modernized until 1783.
The states of America located America abandoned slavery, as it was said, “Its effect in
the southern states to the north, and until the issuance of a law prohibiting the bringing
of slaves from the void in 1808. “But this issue in the first part of the ruling on slavery
began with failure, as “the number of black slaves has tripled, and their number has
increased to more than 4 million by 1865. the same source.
In the history of the struggle of blacks against the United States, the starting point was a
mass revolution in 1831 in a group of farms in Virginia, the cradle of slavery, where Nat
Turner and a group of blacks revolted, except The revolution resulted in the killing of at
least 100 people, and it ended after three weeks with the execution of Nat and those
with him.
Similar events followed, until the civil war in 1865, and its end resulted in the liberation
of blacks in the south. This was evidenced after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Where Andrew Johnson, the new president, made an attempt to return blacks to their
first places as slaves, but the expansion of the US Congress after 1870 granted them
many new rights such as equality without regard to race or color. They were also
granted the right to vote, but things regressed after 1885 with the enactment of racist
laws separating blacks and whites in schools, public places, and some official places,
and white racist groups appeared that terrorized, killed, and tortured blacks.

Blacks have struggled for a long time since then, until they entered the twentieth
century, through education, music, and culture that spread among them. They insisted
on their rights despite any racism and violence, and they resisted all the laws enacted
against them, until the cry of the black fighter Martin Luther King “I have a dream” in the
sixties, to witness the day when human beings are equal, civil rights will spread and
people will gain their freedom, amid a demonstration of blacks and whites. Another
black activist, Malcolm X, was assassinated in 1965, a fate that befell King three years
later, but these sacrifices were not in vain as blacks were finally able, after the civil
rights movement between 1955 and 1968, to gradually obtain their full rights as
American citizens. Bypassing a set of federal legislation that eliminates discriminatory
practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin after isolation. The
struggle of blacks continued, and representation in America in public, media, and
sports.

The most recent of which was a Minneapolis policeman who killed on May 25 the black
American George Floyd during his arrest, which sparked massive demonstrations in
which Americans of every race and color participated against racism in their homeland.
And the protests moved to many states and included police departments and some
important officials. And a lot of celebrities? After the killing of George Floyd,
Washington, DC, witnessed one of the largest demonstrations in its history. And then
the protests led to the resignation of all officers of the police tactical intervention unit in
the United States, in protest against the suspension of two officers from work and
granting them leave without pay after accusing them of brutality," according to BBC on
June 6th.
On the contrary, many American police units presented a different picture, according to
what was reported by several pictures of news agencies, in solidarity with the protesters
over the death of George Floyd, and also “demands spread for reform of the American
judicial system in its dealings with cases that are formed against racist backgrounds
against blacks.”
Floyd's killing attracted attention in many European and Arab countries, where the
reactions were described in solidarity with every humanitarian issue against racism,
whether in America or the world. Generally with the Floyd case, any delay in
implementing the demands of the American people to create better legal and public
conditions to protect everyone from the specter of racism that still hangs over America
from time to time in the twenty-first century.
The Americans who are insisting on stopping racism in their country today seem to be a
popular force pressing on the authority, to stop any racist behavior that may be
condoned by law, even by mistake. For them and their children, their origins, color, or
nationality are not important, but what is always important is the human being only,
whether in America or any other place where racism is still a weapon against the
freedom and existence of the other.
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