“I Didn’t Get That Job Because of a Black Man”, “Notes on the State of Virginia”, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress” Reflections
| Subject: | 🧑🤝🧑 Sociology |
| Type: | Compare and Contrast Essay |
| Pages: | 2 |
| Word count: | 689 |
| Topics: | 🦸🏿♂️ Racial Inequality, Christopher Columbus, Native American, 📗 Book, 👎🏿 Racism, 👳🏿 Slavery |
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In “I Didn’t Get That Job Because of a Black Man – Color-Blind Racism’s Racial Stories” Bonilla-Silva discusses the dominant racial stories associated with color-blind racism and racial ideology in the contemporary time. Bonilla-Silva. As the author spells out, racism springs up when dominant players in a racialized social structure receive economic, political and social benefits at all levels whereas minority actors do not. Thus, by analyzing the diverse storylines and testimonies on racism by different individuals, the author argues that the storylines and testimonies act as social products reinforced by the media. The aforesaid is when the media utilizes the racial stories created by different parties where it then makes them autonomous creations that validate the ethnic worry in the society. Hence, the author emphasizes that the stories individuals present and represent play a significant role in defining social events that instruct the social processes, systems, and situations (Bonilla-Silva, 2014).
Correspondingly, in “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress,” Zinn illustrates that the society learns of the history and discoveries of Columbus that majority of individuals on see the progress and development. Therefore, he suggests that the community tells the story of success and history through the leaders and not through the minority that struggled to attain the success. Additionally, Zinn argues that history books ignore relaying the accounts where tears, slavery, and blood was shed in the quest for success a clear depiction of how the society at times conceals the truth. For that reason, it is apparent that history chooses what part to ignore and what to highlight hence Zinn brings forth the cruelties and ignorance of history (History is a Weapon, n.d).
Similarly, Jefferson in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” plainly and continuously wanted slavery to be abolished despite his having the belief that blacks were inferior to whites in racial, social and political issues. Moreover, Jefferson argues that liberated slaves should be sent to their colonies as sovereign people. As a result, those above made him one of the chief proponents of freedom owing to his advocacy of a constitution that protected all parties. This simply implied that in as much as the whites and blacks were compared, the blacks were justified to be freed despite some existential different on body endowment and intellectuality between whites and blacks (Jefferson, 2007).
In his reading, Bonilla-Silva utilizes college student’s stories and testimonies on issues racism to examine how modern racial stories depict racism in the current social structure. The stories and testimonies as the author states emerged naturally in the course of his interviewing different students on the racially sensitive issues hence serving as a significant sphere of reference in the research owing to their salient features of reinforcing authentic status quo. On the other hand, Zinn utilizes the accounts of Columbus heroic and genocidal actions that he committed which history textbooks only highlight the heroism was ignoring the genocidal reports. Equally, Jefferson in his reading recounted the knowledge he has acquired regarding slavery and the ideological differences between the black and white to support his argument. His ideologies reflect his idea of slaves’ emancipation in the US a channel to prevent the extermination of either the black or white race.
Mostly, from the analyses of the above readings, it is visible that racism has been a debatable issue that has increasingly been on the spot since time immemorial. As an outcome, the topic has primarily led to the increased concerns by scholars on how equality can be attained for all races and groups of people, the minority, and majority, globally. The above mentioned expounds on the readings being chosen for the classes since racism has been in the limelight since the slavery period to the present day. Further, the texts have offered new insights to readers on how the society and mass media facilitates the broadcast of the vice that has led to increased biases in the contemporary society characterized by racial discrimination. This implies that the nation has the mandate to curtail the conceived and misinformed stereotypes that both the community and the media portrays regarding race to prevent adverse impacts in future.
- Bonilla-Silva, E. (2014). Racism without Racists Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America Fourth Edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
- Jefferson, T. (2007). Notes on the State of Virginia. In Colombo, G., Robert, C., and Bonnie, L. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. 7th ed. Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
- History is a Weapon. A Peoples History of the United States. Columbus, the Indians, and Human Process. Retrieved from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html
