Are Things Better
While reading the book march I can’t help but think that people as a whole in America have become more racially tolerant than in the 1960’s. In the book march they don’t sugar coat what was happening during this time at all, they straight up say this is what happened. There is no telling how many people beat, bruised, battered, or even killed during this time of civil unrest mostly because the police didn’t care about black people disappearing. The police were even sometimes responsible for the African American people disappearing or their death.
Even though I say we have come a long way that doesn’t me we can’t even further. In 1940 60 percent of employed black women worked as domestic servants, as of today that number has dropped down to 2.2 percent, while 60 percent have white- collar jobs. Also, in 1958 a study showed that 44 percent of white families would move If a black family moved in near them today the figure is 1 percent. These facts are what the media reports that the black underclass is still what is used to define black America in the view of the public. And many blacks who consider themselves to be middle class outnumber those below the poverty line by a wide margin.
I agree with you that racism against black Americans is now significantly less prominent than it once was. This is true because of not only the statistics that you mentioned, but also the lack of Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws were the segregationist laws put into place especially in the south and they are thankfully no longer in place. All Jim Crow laws have been repealed and declared unconstitutional, segregation is now a clear thing of the past with public and private businesses no longer being segregated by race, and racism from authority figures is now rare compared to what it once was. On top of all of this Obama (a black American) won two presidential races which would have been without a doubt unthinkable sixty to one hundred years ago.
This is clearly a good thing as racism (especially the state sponsored racism of Jim Crow) is a very disgusting thing that can have some horrendous consequences. In the book March it does a good job showing the terrible treatment of black Americans by the police, businesses, and other private individuals. It did this by showing things like the police beating people who did sit-ins as well as people who did stand-ins in things like movie theaters. The police also made deals with groups like the Ku Klux Klan letting them terrorize those who spoke out against the injustices without prosecuting them even after they would beat and sometimes almost even kill protesters with there even being the situation described in the comic book where they burnt down the freedom riders’ bus. It was also something at the time to see things like lynch mobs that would sometimes be racially motivated and then face no charges. At least I have not seen any of this happen in the twenty first century in the USA and that’s a good sign of progress in my eyes.
The author of Are things Better goes on to recognize the honesty in the March Book. Many individuals were assaulted simply because of the color of their skin, discrmination towards them was only heightened when they took action to stand up for themselves in an attempt to create change. The March Book told the honest stories of people that were activists for racial discrimination despite how gruesome they were to show the reader the truth of what black people had to experience. Unfortunately as readers, we have no ability in changing what they went through so the least we can do is acknowledge them and their stories and create change in our world today so no others ever have to experience what they did.
The author lists numbers and percentage, from the 1940s, of black women who worked as domestic servants and the significant decrease in the percentage today. The numbers represents the changes that have shifted and been made in society but there is this still racial discrimination very present. Yes, things are better but if we are comparing it to the time when black people were being lynched publically and the KKK was roaming freely without consequence then the expectations and standards are on the floor. The real change needs to start by educating the young public. Education on the history of racial discrmination and the dignity of the human person will instill their mindsets for the future, creating a world and society that is accepting of all individuals no matter the color of their skin, creating a world that doesn’t repeat history.