Respond to this question (using at least one assigned reading)::
What is one way in which past racism continues to influence racial relations today?
There are multiple ways that racism in the past continues to haunt racial relations today. For Americans, one of the most obvious ways in which we can see that today is through the treatment of Black communities in America by other races. It is not only ignorant but harmful to believe that the emancipation proclamation or the thirteenth amendment, the abolishment of slavery, simply one of the many physical embodiments of Black oppression and not the attitudes of it, was the solution to dissolve not only slavery but racism and white supremacist attitudes. It is important to understand that these beliefs and attitudes toward race do not end at a simple executive order and that racism runs deep and is ingrained in society's mind. Like Rodney King, Oscar Grant, Daunte Wright, Andre Hill, Breonna Taylor, and very recently, George Floyd, Black people are de-valued and are marketed as threats in society, even when they are obviously doing nothing wrong. The "othering" of Black communities through mistreatment and neglect by other races causes psychological distress, which adds to the generational trauma that Black American populations endure from the trauma from slavery. Skewed life expectancies, higher rates of incarceration, disproportionate access to medical and educational resources, impoverishment, violence, and extremely high rates of police brutality are only some of the ways in which Black communities are still absolutely oppressed in this country, and through the world, according to Saidiya Hartman in "Lose Your Mother". Just because slavery was technically, shallowly "abolished", absolutely does NOT signify the end of racist ideology and white supremacy. As said by Hartman, "I too, am the afterlife of slavery." Slavery, our history, has set the stage for the humanity and attitudes of racial relations and humanity today.
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