Overcoming Discrimination In America

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For years, there has been one lingering obstacle that we, as the United States of America, have never been able to fully overcome. That one thing is discrimination. With discrimination being the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex, it has been a long struggle to defeat. However, this can all change if the citizens of the U.S. themselves get past this obstacle. By overcoming discrimination, our country will be an equal society where everyone will have the same rights No one group will be more privileged than another, we will live in a world where race and ethnicity has no influence on the expectations or rights associated with one. However, all this is only …show more content…
And because it has been created by the people, it has to be overcome by the people before laws or future actions can follow. When the Klu Klux Klan, also known as the KKK, was formed, all the members shared one opinion that brought them together: they all were opposed to blacks being equal member of society; they wanted to keep white supremacy. However, even though this was during Reconstruction after the Civil War, these members did not accept it. They used redemption violence, which is using violent methods to regain possession of something- in this case, superiority. Despite the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 including that “new state constitutions were required to provide for universal manhood suffrage (voting rights for all men) without regard to race”, the KKK opposed this new law and forced freedmen into voting for what the members wanted, showing that the minds and opinions are the most important factor in overcoming discrimination since the opinions were what was holding the anonymous KKK members from overcoming prejudice towards African Americans (Handout 7.4 The Reconstruction Acts of …show more content…
Even though laws are a system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as a way to regulate the actions of its members and may enforce by the imposition of penalties, they are by far not the most important factor in overcoming discrimination. Laws are definitely important, but people have a larger role in overcoming prejudice. This is clearly shown in … when it says….. Shows that even though the laws overcame the discrimination, the people had not, which is what was restricting overcoming
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