Are people still treated

differently because of their

skin colour in America?
Izabela jamnik, 10a, global perspectives
Racism is discrimination of people based on their skin colour. In most
places people with lighter skin colour are more privileged than people
with darker skin colour.
In the past racism was quite common and people did not think much
of it. With society evolving and people becoming more aware of their
surroundings we would hope that racism would not exist anymore.
That is not the case.

There are different types of racism. The most common is individual

racism. Individual racism occurs when a person has personal racist
assumptions or believes and is based on personal prejudice.
Another particularly important type of racism is systemic racism.
Systemic racism refers to how ideas of white privilege affects
everyday thinking at systems level. These systems can include laws
and regulations.

Racism in America has existed since the colonial era. Between 1525
and 1866 more than 12 million black people were brought from
Africa to America and sold as slaves to work on the plantations and in
white households. African Americans did not have the same rights as
the white Americans up until 1960s when the civil rights movement
led by Martin Luther King started. More than 150 years after the 13th
Amendment abolished slavery in the United States, most adults say
that the history of black slavery still impacts their day to day life in
the U.S.A.

According to the website:

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/
research has found evidence of racial discrimination based on skin
colour in business, housing, health care, media and politics existing in
the American society even today.
Once again, these issues became the centre of attention of the media
and the public after the recent death of George Floyd. George Floyd
was a 46-year-old black man who got killed because of unnecessary
police brutality. The tragic event happened on May 25, 2020 which
caused a world-wide Black Lives Matter protest. This of course is not
the first African American citizen who has fallen victim to police
brutality, in fact many people of darker skin colour get killed by the
same reasons. Racism is not present only in America, far from it. It
exists across the world. But the way the U.S. is known by racial
issues, as shown in mass media, creates a feeling that racism is
present only there and is suffered by all citizens with darker coloured
skin. Europe is also a place where racism occurs. Although it is not as
severe as in America it’s still present. It is common for people of
African roots born and educated in Europe, despite being successful
in their studies, to remain jobless, or when employed either struggle to
prove themselves or get close to no validation for their work simply
because of the colour of their skin.

The aim of our team project was to spread awareness of the racial
issues in the United States. Today most people are familiar with
racism thanks to media, but I still think that it should be talked about
more. I personally prefer working in a team because by hearing
different thoughts really helped me understand and learn more about
this sensitive topic. Even though working in a group can be more fun
and interesting than working alone there is still some disadvantages.
In our team some of the members barely contributed to the project. It
was also a bit challenging to contact some of the members because
they were not participating in the group discussions.
.
Throughout this project I tried to work and participate in the group as
much as I could. Another advantage of working with other people is
that you can share the work between members. Everyone can have
strengths and weaknesses and by having different people, work can be
divided so members can concentrate on what they are best at. My
strengths in this project were mostly organisation and division of
work between members of the team. I also contributed a little bit to
the research and outcome.

Our outcome is in my opinion very well composed. With a good

presentation we can easily reach our aim of informing people about
this particularly important issue that is affecting millions of people
and families around the world.
Overall, this group project opened my eyes to some serious issues that
have been going on for forever. It also thought me how to work in a
team which is going to help me a lot in the future.,

Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-
racism-america-180975029/ .

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/04/09/race-in-america-2019/ ,

http://www.aclrc.com/forms-of-racism .

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html ,

https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-systemic-racism-and-institutional-
racism-131152 .

https://www.euractiv.com/section/non-discrimination/opinion/how-the-eu-is-going-
about-racism-and-racial-inequality/ .