Challenging Inequalities: Race, Ethnicity, and immigration

Challenging Inequalities: Race, Ethnicity, and immigration

Racial stereotype leads to the inability of minority races from enjoying human rights. Racism refers to oppression and discrimination based on skin color. The book ‘Challenging inequalities; Readings in Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration highlights various ways through which race has led to the structuring of social institutions together with examining how the society we live in affects people’s behavior. There are many races in America due to immigration, such as the whites, African Americans, Latinos, Mexican, and Hispanics who oppress each other based on their race. Ethnicity occurred due to the intermarriage of different races in America. History shows that at first, racism in institutions took the forms of slavery and segregation. The readings show that the most affected race by slavery was the blacks or African Americans. This essay explores and compares what three passages from the book and how they elaborate on the issue of racial stereotype in the modern multicultural community.

Undocumented workers and precarious labor by Shannon Gleeson

Social inequality in America occurs in various ways, such as in the workplace, in terms of wages and working conditions, especially undocumented workers. Shannon Gleeson, while focusing on ‘Undocumented workers and precarious labor,’ states that the increase in immigration has led to the rise in the number of undocumented workers (p.211). According to Gleeson, there is a significant wage gap between different races, which causes an unequal distribution of income. At first, immigrants could not access well-paying jobs, and many remained unemployed, but after the passage of the civil rights Act, different races were able to get employment. Still, the act did not end the income disparities. Research shows that Asian Americans earn more when compared to other ethnic groups like the African, native, Latino, and white Americans.

Gleeson asserts that ‘it is assumed that the majority of immigrants take jobs from domestic workers; however, this is not true; in fact, immigrant laborers tend to play a complementary role in the American labor force(p.211). Due to this stereotype and false belief research from the Unregulated Work Survey confirms that the majority of undocumented workers are ‘more likely to work in hazardous conditions without earning a premium cover like other workers.’ Besides, Gleeson asserts that as a result of racial stereotypes, most of the undocumented workers are vulnerable to less pay. As a result, most employers prefer cheap labor from immigrants which helps in reducing the cost of production and they are less likely to pursue legal actions due to fear of deportation. The article by Gleeson, provides an insight on the challenges faced by undocumented workers as a result of racial inequality and stereotype. None the less, Gleeson claims that the undocumented workers have been ‘critical to organizing efforts such as the iconic justice for janitors campaign and the Global Hyatt Boycott’ (p.214).

Black and Latinx millennial students and racial justice activism in the Age of Black lives Matter by Maria Joaquina Villasenor.

Different from the previous reading, this article by Maria Joaquiana focuses on racial stereotypes in society and how it affects millennials, especially in the modern technological era. One of the significant issues facing African-American, as highlighted in this reading, is ‘the problem of deadly police and vigilante violence against African-American.’ The rise in deaths among African-American teenagers continuous to spark ‘low levels of social trust’ in the legal system, as highlighted in the case of Trayvon Martin. According to the reading, Trayvon Martin (African American) was killed by a neighborhood watch vigilante known as George Zimmerman (white), who claimed that he thought the deceased was ‘up to no good.’ The story gained public recognition when Reuters wire services decided to report on the proceedings of the story.

In this reading, we get to find some of the negative impacts caused by racial stereotypes, which led to the death of an innocent teenager. One of the things that stand out from this story is that millennials of color have taken a different approach to fight racial discrimination through the use of social media to fight social injustices. This move is sufficient for it aids in showcasing the global phenomena that affect the rights of immigrants. Besides, the students also pressured the Florida state government to ‘enact changes that aim at protecting the lives of minorities in the state.’ As a result, the Black lives matter movement continues to influence the social institutions on and off school to enable students from different racial backgrounds the right to education and freedom as immigrants.

White Privilege: Moving Beyond Guild into responsibility and Debra Busman

The third reading is different from the above two passages, in that, in this article, Busman focuses on the issue of white privilege, which tends to favor one race against the others. According to Busman, white privilege is ‘any advantage, benefit, opportunity, general protection or head start from contrary societal mistreatment that white people typically enjoy, but other races do not enjoy. This is the opposite of what other races are experiences as members of society in America. The issue of white privilege results in the rise in discrimination and racial segregation because it makes one race feel unique than other races.

The racial wage gap is caused by different factors like educational disparities, occupation disparities, globalization, and geographic distribution. Education created income inequalities as different races obtain different education levels, some high and others low, which find their occupation. Racial stereotype impacts students physically and emotionally as they fear what racism will do to their families like discrimination, harassment, deportation, and detention (Decuir-Gunby and Williams, 2007). Fear affects a student’s performance. Another challenging inequality is based on ethnicity were people are segregated depending on their ethnic group. An ethnic group includes people who share the same religion, language, history, society, or culture. People discriminate against people from other ethnic groups. All the readings highlight that racism and social inequalities occur in areas like income, education, occupation, and health, thus limiting immigrants from enjoying their human rights.