Race Case

Why does the color of your skin determine your success rate in American society? After Barrack Obama’s victory over John McCain is skin color still an issue for us colored people? I can openly give you my opinion about these questions but the real question is do you determine some or all of your ideas and assumptions based merely on the color of someone’s skin? In the reading, Between Barrack and a Hard Place, Obama is a courageous man to go up against white people and their racist and discriminating words and thoughts. He knew what colored people and some whites wanted for the United States; he took a stand and wanted to fight for equality for all men, he fought for his title, President, he made history that year.

According to author, Tim Wise the election in 2008 is an example of his ideas of what racism is. Racism 1.0 and racism 2.0, are his ideas and thoughts of how white people act differently from slavery to now. Racism 1.0 is the traditional act of racism, when white people felt, i.e., suspicion, fear, and anxiety towards colored people. An act of traditional racism was occurring long before the presidential election in 2008. Notice before there were only white people in office. When Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, most colored people didn’t think they would ever witness a black president becoming president because of the suffering towards colored people that took place throughout history. After his victory Obama set out an entirely different idea, Racism 2.0 is what the author named it; a colored person can be accepted into society if they can make “whites” feel comfortably. Racism seemed to have been left in the dark and wasn’t too much of an issue because now we have a colored president. This opened up many eyes around America from children to adults of all races. We can now celebrate in our hearts that being “non-white” isn’t so bad. Obama was an example to whatever color you may be does not determine your success in American society. You can be black and still be successful if you can live by what Tim Wise determines, “make whites feel comfortably.” I still think being non-white still has issues because we are practically trying to fit into a “white society it’s obvious in the authors idea of racism 2.0. I think discrimination and racism will be resolved once we can accept the fact that the color of your skin doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t have to determine anything, like the small sentence implies, “all men are created equal.”

In the other reading the authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman do a study on how babies and children discriminate against the color of skin. These studies took place on children from ages six months to seven years of age. The way the authors determined six month old baby discrimination was way beyond what I could ever imagine. During the study they places pictures of people in front of the baby and if