A race is a group of people sharing similar physical characteristics.
U. S Civil Right Commission defines racism as any action or attitude, conscious or unconscious, that subordinates and individual or a group based on skin color or race which can be enacted individually or institutionally.It can be said to be any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origins which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise, or equal footing of human rights and fundamental freedom in the political, economic or social aspect or any other field of life. It is to be noted that, different people of different racial origin have lived and coexisted together peacefully. Racial discrimination stemmed up during colonial period.In the middle ages, Europeans who became colonizers, held Asian and African people with respect due to their advancement.
However, all this change after Europe colonized other continent with the notion that the inhabitants were inferior and also driven by the desire for economic power. Racism has witnessed devastating results in many parts of the world. During the World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews were executed by Nazis using different economic, social and political means. Africans were captured in thousands and shipped to America to work as slaves in sugar plantations.In South Africa, apartheid discriminated Africans who were considered to be inferior to the white race who ruled the land. According to Vernillia R.
(2006), the ideology of racial discrimination taking away necessary power, facilities, services, opportunities from someone who should be entitles to them denied on the bases of race. Racial discrimination has been practiced in many faces. In apartheid South Africa, they constructed different school, bridges, hotels and different transport systems for the whites and for the blacks.The race considered superior is always given priority to basic services. The same has been practiced in America where the black race was denied access to many facilities enjoyed by the whites. In America, as early as 1886, civil right act provided a remedy for international race discrimination which actually suggests existence of racism in those days. Oppressed races in America hoped that the end of civil war in 1856 would mark the end of the division between Americans and Africans Americans but it merely signified the end of slavery.
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They were denied voting right. This is one manifestation of racism. Racial discrimination still continues in many faces of every day life. Economic policies has been used a one too of racial discrimination. According to Donald Tomaskovic and Vincent Rooscigno (1996), prominent perspectives in the study of race and ethnic relations make different predictions with regard to who gains from U. S racial inequality.
The competition perspective argues that white in general, and the white working class in particular, benefits materially from racial economic subordination.The class exploitation perspective, in contrast, argues that elite whites benefit and working class whites lose. Competition and exploitation perspectives are theoretically limited because they neglect the historically and structurally contingent nature of distribution, struggles and political-economic development.
There have been concerns about high disease incidences among minority races like the blacks in Africa or Asians.It can be said that, there is direct racial discrimination if the health service economic policies David R. Williams, (1999) argues economic discrimination has been manifested in diseases. He wonders why higher disease rates is observed on blacks or African Americans compared to whites with the racial gap in mortality widening in recent years for multiple causes of death. He tries to explore how social economic status combines to affect health. Racism can affect health in different ways. Residence in poor neighborhoods, racial bias in medical care, the stress of experience of discrimination and the acceptance of the societal stigma of inferiority can have deleterious heath results.
The answer to equal health opportunities for all races in the world lies in genuine distribution of necessary drugs to all people in the world. From the economic point of view it can be argued that modern theories of labor market discrimination and of human capital investment is social context discriminate against the minorities. From early days, economic models created prejudice against the minority. Africans were considered a minority race and hence were shipped in millions to go and work in sugar plantation doing manual jobs which other races could not do.Racial wage differences created income gap between the superior and inferior group with same reflection in social and political life.
To date, wage racial discrimination is still practiced in the job market with arguments advanced on qualifications of different races. The resultant wage structure reduces the incentives of the minor race to invest in difficult-to-observe skills and generate a racial gap in labor market productivity. To find solution to the labor market discrimination, equal opportunity policies can improve efficiency as well as reduce inequality by increasing the incentives or minority worker to invest in human capital.With well informed regulator, employers will attempt to evade equal opportunities restriction. Affirmative action policies that regulate outcomes provide an enforcement mechanism and eliminate negative group stereotypes. Job market discrimination has been experienced in most international organization and even in local organization.
World grants and loans to minority countries have mostly been followed with conditions that the locals are not qualified enough to manage the grants and hence the need to import an expert to manage the projects being funded.This has created a notion that the local inhabitants of those third world countries as not qualified enough. However this has been proved wrong in countries like China which has developed without experts from developed countries. Structure perspective on racial inequality argue that as the relative size of a minority population increases, the perceived economic threat to the dominant group increases as well resulting in higher discrimination level. Population increase in races occupying third world countries have caused worries in developed countries with their countries population growth rate often sliding down the graph.
China is an example of a country that has developed owing to its high human capital. This has caused disquiet among developed countries with various population control measures being put in place. Economic grants as an economic model has been advanced as a magic way to improve the economic situation of third world countries. This is a way of crating a recycling dependency syndrome of these countries. Coming up with good economic models is the way forward to alleviate the situation.
The problem of widening economic gap between the developed and developing countries is actually a matter of resources and trade. Unfair trade policies are the route cause of the economic gap. This is a way of racial discrimination since the third world countries are occupied by races considered inferior to the white race. Trade initiatives that create equal market opportunities are the way forward to solve economic gaps. The United States came up with AGOA act that has enabled developing countries export goods to the States duty free. This should be an example to be emulated by other developed countries.
