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 Racial Discrimination 
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After having read the letter by Martin Luther King Jr. and then reading the Human Rights Watch, I began to wonder about some things. I know that discrimination against blacks has decreased a great amount since "slave times" and since the 60's, however, has it really decreased as much as we think? It seems as though there is a lot more hidden discrimination as opposed to outright discrimination of the 50's and 60's. Have we really progressed as a nation all that much, or are we just naive to the hidden discrimination, like that that is mentioned in the Rights Watch article?


Thu Feb 24, 2005 3:08 pm
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I don't think we have hidden it, some people have made great strives to become equal. And I think we as a nation have seen and changed with this movement. But, understand there are always going to be people to throw a wrench in the gears of change. I don't think this is the same discrimination as seen in the civil rights times. We have people black and white that hate each other equally but, that is not all of us. So as a whole I think we are moving in the right direction, we just have not reached out distination


Thu Feb 24, 2005 4:24 pm
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I think the progress that we HAVE made makes it easier for us in the majority culture to be blind to what barriers are still there. We look at the great changes since the '50s and feel like we've done so much that we brush off any thing minority groups say about what still needs to be done. A sort of "What are they complaining about? Look how things have changed!" attitude. I think there is so much less likelihood of there being overt hatred of blacks like there used to be, and people don't use the language they used to, but there is still fear of change and resistance to integration.


Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:35 am
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I think, like others have said, we have made great strides in the face of equality. However, I still think there are a lot of hidden barriers, STILL. Why haven't we had a black president or a woman president? Why are so many CEOs not American Indian, Black or a woman? Why when I turn on the tv, the number of tv shows that have minorities as the main character are still in the minority? I think it's even down to the way we raise families: why do we automatically assume that boys will want Monster trucks to play with and the girls want Barbies? To add to that, why do we accept it as okay that girls can play with Monster trucks if they want to, but if a boy plays with Barbies that's wrong? When we look at a newspaper, how many times do we see women and minorities staring out from the page as opposed to the number of white men? My only implication is this: we still have expectations and our society still needs to still strive for even more equality. Yes, we've made great strides, but these issues are still lurking underneath the surface.


Sun Feb 27, 2005 12:59 pm
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I really like what Dana had to say. My dad holds an opinion like what she mentioned. He claims to be very pro-non-descrimination but whenever he watches something like The O'Reilly Factor on Fox news he gets, well, riled up. There are often talks on the show about racism and how black people have progressed or not progressed on the show..but anyway my dad is always saying, "What's their problem! They think the world owes them everything just because of slavery! Get over it!" This kind of attitude that says, "we've all got equal rights now, and things are fine" is definately ignorance. yes, things have changed, and hooray for it. But there is hope, and I believe in the next few decades, even as whites will become the minority in our country, that we will see other races hold higher positions in society. Hopefully, they will hold higher positions in our hearts as well.


Tue Mar 01, 2005 12:31 pm
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"The progress that we HAVE made makes it easier for us in the majority culture to be blind to what barriers are still there."

I like what Dana said here.

I remember the first basketball shot I ever made during a game when I was seven. I was so excited jumping up and down about making the basket that I neglected to pay any attention to the fact that the other team was already at their end of the court scoring their own point.

We have come a LOOONG way since the first Civil Rights Movement and even farther from the 19th century. But Dana is right. Just because blacks are not our slaves (our=white majority) does not mean that they are yet as equals.

Affirmative Action reiterates this point. We can two-step as much as we want around the idea, but A.A. inherently underscores inequality.

Perhaps we are headed in the right direction, but before we can really get anywhere we have to get through the fact that racism lurks in every aspect of our culture.


Thu Mar 03, 2005 10:25 am
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Discrimination is everywhere we go. It isn't just racial discrimination either. We discriminate against gender, religion, sexual preference, and age. I think that deep inside we are all a little prejudice. We just need to be aware of it and overcome them. For instance, my daughter attended a conference at UNC-CH on social diversity and accepting people as they are. They had student representatives from the school on the panels. This included students who are gay. However, earlier this week the news reported a story that a gay UNC-CH student was the victim of a hate crime. I think it is wonderful that Carolina was trying to reach high school students but it appears that they need to work with the student enrolled. As teachers, we need to be models for our students and accept who they are.


Thu Mar 03, 2005 11:39 am
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I feel so sad to be from an area that still has Klan rallies. There is still a lot of discrimination in my hometown and going through Block this semester has armed me with some ways to battle this horrible problem. I think however that some discrimination as you mentioned is hidden. In my schooling experience I have known many Hispanic students that were discriminated against without the teacher coming right out and saying it. It is my hope as teachers that we can have a classroom where we teach students to be equals. In many cases children bring in the racist thoughts of their parents. We have a thin line to walk to educate the students without completely isolating the parents.


Sun Apr 24, 2005 5:20 pm
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