Race & Ethnicity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Race & Ethnicity - Essay Example In America, ethnicity and race have been perceived differently in the past and presently due to color, gender discrimination, and religious differences, which are the main determinants. The traditional perception of race and ethnicity in the country was that those who belonged to a specific race were segregated from the other. Each tribe was independent of the other irrespective of the above factors. Today in America, ethnicity, and race involves grouping people on the basis of how much the society rewards them and their shared culture. Unlike in the past when majority of Americans were white, presently, people in America are either black or white, and their no transition except for Native Americans or the Asian Americans (Margret 12). As a result, race and ethnicity was not on the basis of color in the past. Today, white people in America live segregated from the non-whites. The Africans-Americans live typically in large Africans neighborhoods. The residential segregation has led to elevated levels of poverty experienced in the racial and ethnic minorities. These minorities have dismal chances to acquire jobs, poor healthcare facilities and are prone to crime. There has been increased resistance fusion in marriage patterns of people of America outside their ethnic, religious, and racial groups. Gender differences did not have power in the past hence determined not much race and ethnicity. Today, gender has been a base of discrimination in the United States where the interests of the females have been addressed as those of minority. The white men have overlooked the oppression of the female sex gender. Feminism distracts women from full participation in the America’s progress, and their formation of feminist groups among the Blacks worsens the matter (Clear et. al. 22). The media portray the black African-Americans negatively where they are seen as uneducated, prostitutes, and homemaker’s. Race and ethnicity has been violent because of religious d ifferences presently due to the increase in religious denominations. In the past, religion did not have much power as it does today hence determined less about race and ethnicity. Today, people have used religion as a discriminatory factor in the United States. Terrorist have even used religion as their bases for terror, for example, the Muslims fight the Christians in America. European immigrants sometimes faced religious intolerance as well as the Roman Catholics who suffered from prejudice (Clear 38). People discriminate others because of religion because they are unfamiliar with other religions and the childish mentality that any opposing religion is wrong. Many people from childhood grow not knowing how to appreciate other’s religion and thus train to treat them brutally. People of a specific religion are thus forced to adopt some behaviors that will seclude them from the rest and this form a based for racism and ethnicity in the United States (Barron 4). In conclusion, race and ethnicity is common in the American society, but different from the traditional perspective in respect to color, gender discrimination, and religious differences. Evident in this paper, presently, the patterns of race and ethnicity are changing by being biracial and multiracial among the present children (Margret 18). Through color, race and ethnici