The subject of whether ethnicity matters less now than in the past forges an inference to the Jim Crow laws which defined segregation between blacks and whites. There have been major changes since then in the way blacks are being perceived in society. Civil rights activists such a Rosa Parks, Lou Hamer, and Dr. Martin Luther King created the momentum for a more just society. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person on the bus and was thrown in jail because blacks were supposed to go to the back and whites in front.
This sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and other civil disobedience actions by blacks to enforce social justice. Consequently, it can be confirmed that stalwarts in the movement struggled relentlessly towards a safer society for a severely marginalized section of the population.
In the twenty-first century, black-white ethnic interactions are less tense to the extent that Americans have historically elected an African -American for the first time as president. The chant ‘yes we can’ echoed everywhere around the world for all to realize the magnitude of change that had encapsulated this nation. Due to this phenomenal gesture, many held on to the misconception that racial equality had been realized in America.
On the contrary, when facts are examined carefully it cannot be confirmed that in twenty-first-century America racial prejudice is no longer a factor that determines how far someone will arrive up the social ladder. It may not be leveled at blacks intensely as was done in the late sixties, but elements of racial animosity still exist between minority groups in society and may be practiced at the same magnitude as when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus.
From a careful analysis of post-racial society, trends seemed to have been switched from ex-slave marginalized blacks to minority Hispanics who seemed to have either flourished, or their illegal presence through Mexican trafficking of immigrants across the border has antagonized interest groups. This type of racial profiling is apparent in states like Arizona.
The creation of laws specifically targeting this group under the guise of immigration reform is confirmation that there exists intense racial animosity between Hispanics and whites. They are accused of committing crimes and taking away the jobs of Americans at a time when the unemployment rate is escalating under an African -American Presidency.
A demonstration of this hatred for this infringement of Hispanics on the American Social structure was recently exemplified when the DREAM act failed to pass in the Senate after gaining victory in the House. Many white senators did not vote out of mere animosity for this minority group of children brought here to this country without their consent from their parents. The majority of Dreamers are undocumented Hispanics.
Cuban Americans tend to have less animosity leveled at them since they enter the country legally through a wet-foot dry-foot immigration policy, which is exclusively Cuban. However, in some instances envious rivalry ensue since Cubans seem to be more economically stable than the rest of Hispanics in America. They own chain stores and have contributed effectively towards the development of the Primary Health Care structure.
Clearly, according to Brubaker racial prejudice is performed by particular agents through institutions. It is developed through perception, representation, classification, categorization, and identification. (Brubaker 2004) During the Jim Crow era this was the way American social structure functioned. I am honored as a Cuban American to have fewer of these prejudices leveled at me, but I do empathize with my Hispanic friends.
Work Cited
Brubaker, R. Ethnicity without Groups. Cambridge: Harvard Press 2004.
Brubaker, R. (2004). Ethnicity without G: Harvard Press 2004.