Berry Jr.

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Raymond Berry Jr.
Professor McDonald
English 102-13
April 22, 2016
Racism in America
Racism in its many forms has been alive and thriving in the United States for centuries.
Starting with slavery, branching to things such as the Jim Crow laws, racism is still in Americas
society today. With its constant presence of several forms of racism in all aspects of the
American society, laws have been implemented to protect people from assailants. Although
these laws were implemented to benefit people, all forms of racism havent been stopped, not
even deterred. Some of these forms are reverse racism, cultural racial prejudice, and the form
that this piece focuses on, racial discrimination.
Within the past few years, there have been several cases where racial discrimination has
surfaced in the media. All of the events taking place during 2015. On January 22, Bruce
Horovitz wrote an article published by USA Today about ten, former McDonalds workers that
filed a civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia regarding
racial discrimination. In March, where a University of Maryland student resigned from Kappa
Sigma fraternity after being suspended for sending an e-mail containing racially and sexually
suggestive language about African American, Indian and Asian women. Also in 2015,
disciplinary actions were taken against members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the
University of Oklahoma who participated in a racist chant, caught on video, about lynching
African Americans.
More can be done by policymakers to hinder racial discrimination, along with all other
forms of racism. The policy I feel should be added to school systems across the country is a
social ethics course. The course should run from preschool through high school and teach

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children that no race is better than another. A study was done in 2012 by Mahzarin Banaji, a
Harvard University psychologist, brain researcher, and racism and physical prejudice expert, and
two colleagues, but was covered by James H. Burnett III, a Globe reporter for the Boston Globe.
It showed that children begin to accept racism as early as the age of 3, which is slightly after the
most common age children start preschool, 2 years old. Benaji stated, The odds of aging
children losing or at the very least lessening their bias against out-group people are only
increased, of course, when responsible adults in their lives consciously place their children in a
position to see different groups interacting as equals. With this policy change, children will be
able to be positively influenced before the teen years, where the morals and lessons people are
taught become concrete.
The purpose of the curriculum is to decrease all forms of racism and discrimination. The
course would be taught every day in preschool, thrice in elementary school, twice in middle
school, and in high school it would be offered as an elective, where students must take the class
at least once. In this course, children will be taught that things such race, religion, ethnicity, and
sex dont determine a persons capabilities or how much of a person they are. As students
progress through grade school, the coursework will transition from moral based information to
real life situations. In middle and high school, students will be analyzing case studies and
learning about laws prohibiting racism and discrimination in environments such as social
settings, the work place, school systems, and justice system.
With the need for people to know their rights, this class would be beneficial not only for
the sake of hindering racism, but also teaching people things they havent learned in other
courses. Long term, this policy could cut back on the amount of racial discrimination in
Americas society. Incidents like the ones at McDonalds, the University of Maryland, and the

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University of Oklahoma could be prevented from happening in the future by teaching children
ideal morals throughout their childhood and some of their teen years.

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Bibliography
King, Colbert I. (June 26, 2015). The key reason why racism remains alive and well in America.
Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-racism-stillflourishes/2015/06/26/d0e1f2e4-1b6e-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html
Horovitz, Bruce. (January 22, 2015). McDonalds workers sue over racial discrimination.
Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/01/22/mcdonalds-lawsuitfast-food-restaurant-discrimination/22159777/
Burnett III, James H. (June 10, 2012). Racism learned. Retrieved from
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/06/09/harvard-researcher-says-childrenlearn-racism-quickly/gWuN1ZG3M40WihER2kAfdK/story.html