Politic?

The Culture of Racism

"The legacy of past racism directed at blacks in the United States is more like a bacillus that we have failed to destroy, a live germ that not only continues to make some of us ill but retains the capacity to generate new strains of a disease for which we have no certain cure."
George Frederickson

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... still unwrapping what its newfound independence meant to the American colonies, on July 2, 1777, Vermont became the first territory to abolish slavery.

Racism, it's a dreadful scourge. And it simply refuses to fade away. Despite all the evidence that the misery of racial bigotry has caused untold suffering in the world, and despite the attempts of government agencies to mandate laws against the offences related to social bigotry disenfranchising people on the basis of their skin colour, despite the ignominy when someone's openly racist attitude is revealed and they suffer social ostracism as a result, it is a pathology that thrives.

The world population has come far in its strife against racial discrimination, but obviously not far enough. Nor does it appear likely it ever will be successful in obliterating the wretchedness of one segment of a population feeling themselves superior to another based solely on skin colour. People of colour have been enslaved over the millennia because those who are born with white skins consider them somehow inferior, their due place in society to be the property of white elites.

Enforced separation with the colour barrier strictly enforced has been lifted, to the present day where in theory there are no longer such barriers, and people are free to be what they are, without fear of racism. Trouble is, it's often proved to be an illusion. True, there are areas where blacks have been able to distinguish themselves in the professions, in politics, in academia, but they remain the aristocratic elite, with a large base that is systemically disadvantaged.

But to believe that this is a specific American problem of odious racial discrimination is wrong: the first slavers to round up black Africans to be shipped to Europe and North America were Arab Muslims, entrapping and humiliating and enslaving black Muslims. To Europeans and North Americans black slaves represented valuable property on whose backs they could amass even greater fortunes.

In South America, in Africa, in Europe and elsewhere blacks remain discriminated against, but in a far more deadly manner than in the United States. Though the horrible effects of racism impacts on self-worth -- where black children are taught by their families from infancy on that they will be seen and treated differently than their white counterparts, as inferior, and that opportunities will evade them through racism, have their social destabilizing impact -- far worse occurs elsewhere.

In countries like Sudan, the ruling Arab minority oppresses [and slaughters] the black majority. In Latin America preferential treatment is given to whites over blacks in employment, education, and every other sphere of life. America's institutionalized racism is an underhanded, covert malaise that shows its face in white belief of their black counterparts being lazy, unreliable, given to criminal acts, and blacks may believe it as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Racism deleteriously affects the health of African Americans and Hispanics. Life expectancy is lower and infant mortality higher. A higher rate of psychiatric disorders occur, and the onset of serious diseases occur at an earlier age. "There is something about the American way of life that is dangerous to your health", commented Harvard sociologist David Williams.