Reaction, 4/3

After reading through the readings assigned in this class, I can understand why people are racist. I am not saying that it is acceptable to be racist, but I can understand how it would happen. Racism seems engrained in American history–not just in the fact that people used to be racist, but in how our country developed. It seems impossible to analyze the past, through a completely factual lens, without acknowledging how deeply engrained racism is in America. Even if the racism is incidental–such as de facto segregation–it still existed. However, should we consider this racism? When people attempt to separate other people into different groups based on physical traits, that is racist. However, when an ethnicity decides to separate itself and live in a cultural bubble, how is that racist? Unless the government (or society) treats these individuals with an unfair set of laws, this is not racist.
Yet, I feel that many people would consider this racist due to segregation by ethnicity. The more readings that we do, the more factual information I see that supports the idea that a multicultural country cannot be completely tolerant. In ten years, when we have all of the “facts” and “statistics” about the current times recorded, will the reports show the same level of de facto segregation and racism? Look at how much hate there is still alive in America today. We may now be aware of it, but does that really mean anything? What does raising awareness do, if nothing changes? Of course, we can say that the immigrants all have the same rights as us, but do they really? Are there de facto rights now too?
The more reading that I do, the more I feel that it is impossible not to be racist to some degree, and that American history almost endorses it.