I have to say I completely agree with Niha on her most recent blog post. Some people tend to see racism as an ongoing and pervasive condition of life, and others think of it as individual actions or attitudes of intolerance toward those who hold different opinions. But in general, racism means a set of institution that results in the oppression of the colored people based on a conscious belief in racial superiority.
What forms this is the ongoing generalizations that support the overly common racial assumptions which persist in the society. Racism shapes society's assumptions about who deserves success and who does not, whose culture should be respected or not; all of it based on the first glance at one's skin color, last name and/or religion. Sure we've come a long way since the "separate but equal" society America used to know, and segregated schools are no longer a thing. However, the effects can still be observed everywhere today, made even simpler by the national government. According to an overview of the 115th U.S. Congress, as of January 2017, the Congress is the most racially diverse in history. Although, of the 535 members, only 9.6% of the membership are African Americans, 8.5% are Hispanics/Latinos, and 3.3% are Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry. This racial distribution of the U.S. Congress alone is enough to reflect what's going on. A United Nations committee has just recently called on the U.S. government to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes, following a deadly white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
If not addressed, this will continue to worsen. People have been and will keep denying its existence.
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