Running head: WOUND OF DISPARITY 1
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WOUND OF DISPARITY
Wound of Disparity: The African American Experience in Society
Cadi Swaim
Indian River State College
Abstract
Racism bashes the African American life throughout the twentieth century. Prejudiced laws, racial profiling, and extreme poverty assisted in tainting the African American life. The continuous inequality that African Americans receive is a constant vicious cycle that never ends. Staples, King, and Gregory uncover the images of a culture in an everlasting burden.
“Music itself was color-blind but the media and the radio stations segregate it based on their perceptions of the artists.” (Kiedis, 2010, p.344). Throughout the 20th century the color of your skin matters more than how much money you make. As long as you are a white American, it doesn’t matter what socio-economic class you are in as long as you aren’t an African American. Due to extreme segregation, the African American experience is tainted by prejudiced laws, racial profiling, and extreme poverty. This cruel treatment is terrorizing African Americans throughout their everyday lives.
During the 20th century, prejudiced laws are made to “enforce” strict rules to separate whites and African Americans. This quickly led to stereotypes and unlawful treatment towards African Americans due to all the signs and rules whites put up to protect themselves. Johnson expresses the wicked situations African Americans are put through every day because of prejudice laws. “Blacks were excluded from serving on juries and were not allowed admittance to state poorhouses, insane asylums, and other institutions.” (Darda, 2014 p. 4). Because these laws African Americans constantly lived their lives through fear because if they ran in to a “whites only” area, there was detrimental consequences. Martin Luther King also illustrates the biased culture that attempts to hide and control African American citizens through the unreasonable law of segregation. This unrighteous act crumbles the African Americans of their freedom, justice, and confidence. It also gives the African American adolescence a feeling of embarrassment throughout their lifetime and sets them up for living in a life full of fear. “We can never be fulfilled as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating, ““for whites only”” (King, 2016, p. 40). This perpetual lifestyle whites are living in is damaging the many hearts of African Americans and ruining their potential for pure contentment.
Furthermore, the African American experience in tainted by segregation in that they live in unbearable conditions due to extreme poverty. Because of these conditions, they result in even more division. It separates whites and African Americans by socioeconomic class. In Richard Gregory’s story shame, he explains the torture he faces w...
