Racial Preduce

At this point in the course I understand community organizing as a way for people in a community to come together as a group to discuss problems or concerns that they are facing, and what to see a change come about. Because they are a collective group they are more likely to make noise and get their voices heard, so that a change for the better will become possible and not just a dream of a few people. And my areas of strength as a organizer is getting people involved along with giving them information that is needed about the cause that we are trying to find a solution for.

There are so many types of prejudice out in the world and it ranges from racial, ageism, sexism to disability to name a few. In this paper though I will be discussing racial prejudice from the past to the present day. People are always saying that racial prejudice is a thing of the past and we as people have moved pass that. My question is have we as people really pass racial prejudice or is it more subtle now to where people don't realize that it is still happening?

I will start at the Jim Crow era of the south which they started at the end of a historical period call Reconstruction which was enacted laws design by congress to help order relations between southern whites and newly freed blacks. Since white people had felt threaten by blacks wanting social equality and economic opportunities, instead of giving that to the blacks, the white southern law makers came up with the Jim Crow law which rob blacks of their civil rights, cause segregation, and prevented blacks from mingling out in public places.

This was a dangerous time for blacks living in the south due to lynching and white mob violence near black communities had put fear into them. And on a daily basis their lives weren't much better to the fact they was being taken advantage sexually, being rob of their wages, and being humiliated in front of people while doing their jobs. The reason that they gave for treating blacks this way was because they thought blacks was "getting uppity" because they wanted a better life for themselves. (AmericanRadioWorks, 2011).

Even though southern blacks went through a lot of pain and hardship during the Jim Crow era, some good did come from it. Black folks had started their own night clubs, restaurants and other business, that was for colors only which uplifted the race. And because of this it influences the Civil Rights Movement for blacks.

From 1954 to 1965 the years that are rightly consider by scholars and the public at large as the civil-rights movement's heroic period. Which it focus on citizenship and voting rights for blacks in a nonviolence way. (Joseph, 2010).Even though they was able to achieve their rights it was not an easy task for them; they endure physical and mental anguish.

Through perseverance and with the help of a few strong leaders like Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael who believe in the black-power militancy. They was able to get black people to stand up against, poverty, racial prejudice and democracy, this was done by walking the streets and educating people. At times they was able to create allies with unlikely groups and it also created a backlash with the society which did not want to answer questions about race, poverty, and democracy. (Joseph, 2010,para.13) .

From the civil rights era to the present day, we are still seeing the backlash of the Jim Crow era. Not just from everyday people but from people of power like Senators and Minority House leaders which can be dangerous thing. Because they are not just influencing a small group of people but the whole nation of people with their prejudice thoughts. An example of everyday people still experiencing racially driven prejudice is the Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates a man that was accused of breaking into his own house by two Cambridge police officers even though he showed he showed his license proving that he lived there. Even though he had already called Harvard's property to report that his front door was sticking. He was arrested and released a few hours later with charges being dismissed. By on national television to set the record straight, the backlash of early years prejudice and stereotypes start to resurface like he is "uppity", arrogant, that he shouldn't be working at an Ivy league school and so forth.(Williams, 2009, para 7).

You would think that since we have an African-American president in office that we had pass the race tension in America. The only thing it did was bring back racial tension to the forefront of America, the problem that they don't want to face.

Even President Barack Obama is facing racial prejudice from the house of senate to the house of minority leaders. And it has affected not only the chance of him being elected as president office but also for him to get policies passed. According to this one research study done at Stanford Graduate School of Business, the research found that people's implicit racial prejudices correspond with a reluctance to vote for Obama with opposition to his health care reform plan and any other policies across the board. It suggest that they tend to oppose Obama not because of what the reforms and policies might say or offer but because they dislike him as a black person. (Anonymous,2009, para 2).

There are many people that don't believe that this is true like the Democracy Corps focus group, if we as a nation are supposed to be color-blind then why is it the violence or violent outbursts racially motivated are on the rise here in the United States and threats against President Obama have increase by 400% since former President George W. Bush left office, the highest numbers on record. (Chelala,2010, para.4).

The conflict theorist believes that social structure is best understood in terms of conflict and tension between the dominant group and the minority group.(Hall p.4). In other words the conflict theory see racial prejudice as a competition between the dominant group and the minority group. For the dominant group to protect their social status and power they might resort to extreme violence to keep it. All that this do is make the minority group fight for their share to help their circumstances.

Whereas the functionalist theory looks at how each part of a society contributes to the whole which makes the structure stable. And anything that is not needed to help keep it stable will not be passed down from one generation to the next. This theory also looks at the good functions and the dysfunction's of this and all social problems.

Some good that racial prejudice has done for our society, it provides a moral justification to our society since we always depriving a group of rights and privileges, help justify existing practices which