After the Civil War had
ended, millions of ethnic minorities had expected racial equality on par with
their white counterparts. Much to their
chagrin, the racial issues that had plagued them before the war continued right
on and into the new century. Even the
men of color who fought and whose fellow brothers in arms died for the Union
Army were thrust back into pre-war prejudices that they had sacrificed so much
to be rid of. The millions of immigrants
who entered America over the course of a few decades were also subject to this
way of life. How could a country,
founded on the basis of equality, be so unjust?
Ideas and beliefs on racial inequalities have existed for
centuries. Whether it’s skin color or
ideological, the fact of the matter is that when people recognize their
differences sometimes hatred follows. It
could be fear of the unknown or it could be just plain ignorance. Much of it is passed down through the generations
and taught to children by their parents.
We are not born racist; that is a trait learned.
Much had been done over
the course of America’s short history to prove that our doctrine really only
applied to white men. Such statements as
“all men are created equal” were great on paper but our nation was, and in some
ways still is, rife with inequality.
Ethnic minorities had nowhere near the same treatment in the
socio-political/economical stage.
Laws and policies were
enacted to keep the appearance of equality, all while asserting white
dominance. In the pivotal case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled that racially separate facilities, if equal, did not
violate the Constitution. Segregation, the Court said, was not discrimination
(Smithsonian, n.d.). This ruling opened
the floodgates for education centers and workplaces to segregate the people
while on the surface appearing to be about racial equality. In truth, the whites earned much more than
their black counterparts. They were also
promoted faster and received the choicest positions – which in turn created a
racial black-hole in which white people would look after white people.
Schoolchildren were exposed
to this blatant racism, which only served to further educate them in matters of
social injustice. They saw that the
non-white children were less educated, more poor, and their families much lower
on the social ladder. After a while this
attitude became the status quo. If it
has always been that way, then it must be right… right? That’s how a child’s mind works – and that’s
how a good majority of adult minds were functioning.
In the big cities such
as New York, where immigration was a very big issue, racial segregation was as
blatant as it was accepted. Immigrants
were pouring in. Many were stuffed into
new housing developments called “tenements.”
Jacob Riis says this of the tenements in his book ‘How the Other Side
Lives:’ “Their large rooms were partitioned into several smallerones, without
regard to light or ventilation…and they soon became filled from cellar to
garret with a class of tenantry living from hand to mouth…and thus the dark
bedroom, prolific of untold depravities, came into this world (Riis,
1890). These tenements solved the
problem of where to house all the immigrants – at the cost of even the most basic
tenets of human dignity.
The primary inhabitants
of these tenements were Italian, Irish, and German immigrants. The “native” white people had moved out of
the metro area and into more plush and comfortable settings in the countryside. This left their old domiciles open for the
land-lords to cut into smaller chunks and cram as many people inside as
possible at a mark-up in rent. It was
common to think that these immigrants came from worse and would easily adapt to
any circumstance set before them. This
view started turning these immigrants into a sort of sub-human character in the
public eye: good for labor, but only if kept out of sight.
It took many decades to
right the wrongs of the late 1800s/early 1900s.
Slowly, as the public became aware (or finally admitted to the problem),
new laws were put into effect that paved the way for social equality. By the 1950s, schools were integrating. New worker’s laws made fair and equal
treatment amongst all employees regardless of color or background. But even to this day, the memory of this
inequality is still there; a scar amongst many scars that America’s short life
bears. It will take many more
generations to put aside differences and treat each other like equals. Even today, there’s inequality; however
subtle it may be. Perhaps someday soon,
race will not even be a topic of debate.
References
Smithsonian National Museum of American
History (n.d.). Separate but equal: The law of the land. Retrieved from http://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/1-segregated/separate-but-equal.html
Riis, J. A. (1890). How the other
half lives: Studies among the tenements of New York. Charles Scribner's
Sons. doi:10.1037/12986-000
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