Throughout American history, we’ve seen how the foundation of the United States is based on the issue of racism. The U.S. has always been represented as the land of opportunity, attracting people from all walks of life. In the process of doing so however, there has been a clear distinction between those who are privileged and those who aren’t, giving rise to a very prominent issue in today’s society which is that of racial inequality. One would expect from the 1960s, the era of civil rights to now, continuous progress would be made in trying to remedy this issue. But in reality, the gap between the majority and minority racial groups, is consistently growing. According to Urban Issues, the mean net worth of white households in 2013 was more than 10 times that of Hispanics and nearly 13 times that of blacks. In addition, Urban Issues also states that African American males account for only 6% of the U.S. population but represent 40% of the 90 unarmed men shot to death by police. Also, young white and black men use marijuana at the same rate but yet young black men are jailed at 9 times the rate of whites. Even though, African Americans have been granted equality by law, they still face many discriminatory practices in the present day.

Firstly, a surprising issue in this chapter of Urban Issues was how controversial the “Black Lives Matter” movement has been from the time it began. Many argue that the name of the movement itself signals racial bias towards African Americans, something that this particular racial group is fighting against whites. However, as we’ve seen time and time again, people in today’s society never seem to take social issues seriously unless it has a direct impact on them or drastic moves are made to bring attention to those issues. As Urban Issues states everyone knows the issue of racism exists in America but it is something that is sensitive to an extent where it is rarely ever talked about because people just don’t see a solution to it. Thus, even though the movement “Black Lives Matter” might be an extreme measure in some regard, at least it is getting people outside of that racial group to fully understand and realize the issues at large that have been affecting African Americans.

Secondly, one aspect that was interesting in this chapter of Urban Issues, was the government’s role in helping to integrate American society. It is stated that Clinton’s proposal for integration was to implement measures that would fight poverty and reduce income inequality which would then reduce disparities in the criminal justice system. However, when this happens and people have an opportunity to move away from the “ghetto”, the neighborhood just becomes even more impoverished because those with well paying professions are no longer there to serve as role models for those living in that area and the situation goes back to being as it was initially. With that, Urban Issues states that President Nixon viewed that while legal segregation is totally wrong, forced integration of housing or education is just as wrong. Hence, this gives rise to the question as to how big of a role can government play in integration without affecting the rights of Americans themselves in terms of their personal choices.

If the government can only do so much in helping to foster integration, it is merely up to the individuals to become more socially aware and to create a cultural shift. This chapter sheds light on many public and private universities that advocate civil rights and fight against racial discrimination whenever there are racial issues present at their campuses. Activism on a school level is just as important as any other activist group. If anything, it might be the most important given that there is a huge gap in academic performance on standardized test results as stated in Urban Issues. It is stated that 7 % of black 12th graders were proficient in Math as opposed to 29% white students and 16% of black students were proficient in Reading as opposed to 47% white students. On a CUNY level, there might be some level of activism but not as strong as the case on other campuses. There might not be major racial issues that are present at CUNY campuses but there is still major social and racial division present. Hence, this should be reason enough for students to get up and use their voices to end that because at the end of the day college is suppose to be an equalizer. Moreover, by doing so students would help to prevent those said divisions from becoming a much bigger problem in the future.