End of White America Essay Example for Free

End of White America Essay Racism and prejudice have always existed in human history. Being a taboo subject and a debated issue, many people have tried to explain and find the reason to such conduct concerning another group of people. Such researches are the hope of many to see the racial discrimination ending. Vincent N. Parillo, through his essay Causes of Prejudice tries to explain the reasons of racism in the U. S. Parillo divides his essay in two parts, one for the psychological causes and one for the social reasons. In the first part, Parillo cites the main psychological causes as: levels of prejudices self-justification, personality and frustration. In the second part he transactions into the social explanations, which are: socialization, economic competition and social norms. For each cause he gives strong arguments based on historical data and actual facts and statistics which made his essay reliable. Along the same lines Hua Hsu in â€Å"The End of White America? † argues that America is becoming post racial. According to him race will matter less and less and whiteness will come to an end. Hsu is positive and confident that Americans will overcome resentment stimulated up by these changes and produce a culture in which race won’t be an important factor. These feelings might have been embedded within the people over a really long time and it will take a lot of time and determination to overcome the resentement that is stirred up from within the people. Parrillo provides a great deal of emphasiz into prejudice and the potential or future problems posed by the changing power dynamic between the roles to help us understand the shift and the reason behind the shift. Will Hsu’s words come true? Will white regain their power? Or will they remain threatened about their fading culture and value in America. In my opinion white people have lost power but the only reason that happened is because now there is a more variety due to people immigrating to America and therefore white people are not a majority anymore and have more competition. A couple of decades ago, children were easily influenced by the decisions of others due to demographic shift. In the 1950’s the culture was mostly white. Either people were white, were forced to be white or wanted to be white to fit in. This was because most of the population was white. Accoring to Hsu by the 2050’s white will no longer be there and that most American’s will no longer be white. Hsu always carefully observed the shift in culture which has already started taking place. He touches upon the subject of the white people not having a strong culture. Parrillo talks about different types of prejudice. He states that in the socialization process, people learn the â€Å"values, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of their culture or subculture† (Hsu, 504). Children are being easily swayed because they are taught to obey their parents, and respect that which often takes on the beliefs and ideas of their parents without them knowing what is right or wrong or what they want and don’t. The beliefs of a child’s parents also become the child’s beliefs at a very young age because their parents are the ones that are with them every step of the way. It is believed that people learn from their parents and from others in society may be stereotypes since they don’t have a mind of their own at that age to judge what is true or not. However, many people don’t recognize this, since people are so accustomed to hearing these stereotypes. One example that Parrillo gives is of the Jim Crow laws of the 1890’s and the early 20th century. â€Å"Prejudice, like cultural values is taught and learned through the socialization process. The prevailing prejudicial attitudes and actions may be deeply embedded in custom or law, although socialization explains how prejudicial attitudes may be transmitted from the generation to the next, it does not explain their origin or why they intensify or diminish over the years† (394). The people who grew up with Jim Crow laws accepted them as normal, though they weren’t. Things in the world are slowly and gradually changing. Before, parents used to influence their child’s thoughts and beliefs; however, nowadays other elements influence the child’s beliefs. Watching Dora and more TV shows which give out little facts that are stored in the child’s mind and therefore the child is affected by it. This therefore has influenced the youth greatly, â€Å"the youth market is following the same pattern: consider the cheetah girls or Dora the Explorer, the precocious bilingual seven year old Latina adventurer who is arguably the most successful animated character on children’s television today† (Hsu, 503). They are getting more swayed by the shows. Several decades ago they did what their parents did or asked of them. The only factor that influenced the kids judgment was their parents but now things are different and a lot more influences them like characters, shows, media, and society and therefore parents involvement in their children’s judgment has decreased over the years because so many other factors are more appealing. Hsu gives an explain of Dora, since she is a character who does not conform to the â€Å"white middle class mold†. Referring to different types of prejudice according to Parrillo, it would have to be social norms, since the norms are what society or parents teach their children in that time period. â€Å"By learning and automatically accepting the prevailing prejudices, an individual is simply conforming to the norms. This theory holds that a direct relationship exists between degree of conformity and degree of prejudice† (396). Peoples prejudice would increase or decrease only if the people were introduced to something that is not the norm and most of the kids in today’s world make their own decisions by getting influenced by their own interests and not their parents. Socialization and social norms instill in people certain attitudes, which can manifest themselves under the stress of economic competition. An additional sociological view of prejudice is that of economic competition. The young kids today are the future of tomorrow and therefore economic competition is much more visible in today’s world than it was a few decades ago. People are more â€Å"hostile toward others when they feel that their security is threatened thus many social scientists conclude that economic competition and conflict breed prejudice† (Parrillo, 394). This viewpoint is based on the confidence that when people feel as though their security is being exposed, people are more forceful and unpromising. â€Å"Considerable evidence shows that negative stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination increase markedly whenever competition for available jobs increases† (394). Which is therefore one of the reasons that people are prejudiced because of economic competition which exists a lot in the world of today. Adding Hua Hsu’s thoughts into this, his main example is hip-hop. â€Å"During popular musics rise in the twentieth century while artists and produced main streamed African American innovations. But hip-hop the sound of the post civil-rights, post-soul generation was a global audience on its own terms† (502). Instead of being watered down and whitened like black music in the past, it has remained unmistakably black and yet has taken over the music industry. Sean Combs, like Barack Obama, can be black and yet be accepted by Americans of all colors and reach the top of his field. According to Census data, about 50% of Latinos identify themselves as white. How one identifies them is shaped by both personal and social factors. Due to this de-indianized immigrants click on white in the census. They believed being white was a step closer to being American. This is having a drastic shift according to Hua Hsu. â€Å" Whiteness is no longer a threat or an ideal; its kitsch to be appropriated, whether with gestures like combo’s white parties or the trickle-down epidemic of collared shirts and cuff links currently afflicting rappers†(502) and therefore an expansive multiculturalism is going to be replacing the â€Å"us against the world mentality that lent a thrilling edge to hip-hops mid 1990’s rise† (503). Economic competition now plays a major part in today’s world as it did decades ago. Decades ago, life was a different ball game and people were content with what they had but today every little things are a competition. May it be a battle between the sexes or a competition between who has a better job. To claim that a person is White but against ignorance and oppression is like saying one â€Å"hates the concept of baseball but is a Boston Red Sox fan†. How does white exist outside of the historical background of America’s social rift? Eventually, the same subject pertains to all Americas racial colors that were used for whiteness to even exist. The difference, however, is that behind minority racial colors is a concrete culture whether it be Indian, Mexican, Native American, Chinese etc. that contributes to a greater American background that belongs to everyone, but is institutionally coordinated by the one racial demographic bereft of culture. (Hsu, 504) So again, what do you think defines the identity of whiteness and more importantly how is it exclusive to being a white person? A cultures constitution is formed by how it has come into existence and the methods used to maintain its traditions. White is not a race. It is a arranged social notion designed on isolating the human race. The young is the future of tomorrow, which is why economic competition plays such a big role. Self- Justification and frustration are other levels of prejudice mentioned in Parrillo’s theories. It â€Å"involves denigrating a person or group to justify maltreatment of them. In this situation, self-justification leads to prejudice and discrimination against members of another group† (387). Parrillo also relates this to a person’s financial status; â€Å"a person may avoid social contact with groups deemed inferior and associate only with those identified as being of high status† (387). When people feel inferior to other person, they react to it and want someone to feel inferior to them. According to Hsu â€Å"Pop culture today rallies around an ethic of multicultural inclusion that seems to value every identity—except whiteness† (503). The white culture is declining and the white people are surrounded by so much diversity that they feel like they are so bland compared to them. They don’t feel exotic or different anymore. â€Å"The classic thing white students say when you ask them to talk about who they are is, ‘I don’t have a culture’† (505). A few decades ago white people took pride in being different and exotic. But now slowly and gradually they are becoming a minority because of all the immigrants. â€Å"People tend to be more hostile toward others when they feel that their security is threatened† (Parrillo, 394). White people are more accepting to other cultures and races now since they feel like they are threatened because of the amount of immigrants present in America right now. Since the white people feel like their culture is faded they are getting more paranoid and frustrated. â€Å"Frustration is a result of relative deprivation in which expectations remain unsatisfied† (391). When one does not have sufficient resources in their lives, and their lives are compared to other individuals, they feel inferior and humiliated. With all these immigrants coming to the United States it is making us the majority race, and with all the white people moving away they are giving us the opportunity to overpopulate and put the standards high for whites to accommodate to our lifestyles. This therefore is fading the white culture as due to the immigrants they don’t feel like they are exotic anymore. They believed that everyone wanted to be a white American but now the definition of American itself is changing. It is not a typical rich, white person anymore. I believe that throughout the years, races will all have their chances in population and high power, because it all depends on what race is growing and succeeding at that time of that period. I do not think that whites will become a minority because as i stated before, we all have a time when a race is higher than others and when some are lower than others. If that day does come when whites become minorities, then I sure hope they get the thrive to come up again because I believe that for a country to be successful it needs all types of cultures, races and ethnicity. Even if one race does become the main focus, it is not till to long and it will fade away eventually due to all the immigrants that are present and coming to America.