How Race is an Issue in the World Essay

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Literature Review

This literature review examines the problem of racism and bigotry that continues to exist, not just in the U.S. but all over the world. As nationalism is surging in places like the U.S., the UK, Hungary, Italy, Russia and China, the problem of race and immigration has reared its head on a global stage. Some groups have tried to rise above instances of racism—and one group in particular is the Muslim population in the West: it experienced persecution in the wake of 9/11 (Sheridan, 2006). However, many in the Muslim population tried to extend a helping hand to the West by assisting the fight against terrorism (Mantri, 2011). By looking at how a marginalized and oppressed people set aside race and dedicated themselves to the aims of the nation that accepted them a new perspective on race and a greater appreciation of how racism can be transcended may be achieved. However, to understand the issue of race globally today, it is important to examine how researchers have understood it thus far.

The context of globalization is important to understand, first of all, because globalization has changed the nature of the way identity is constructed. Globalization is defined by Robertson (2015) as “the process whereby polities, economies, institutions and actors at all levels of society become increasingly connected across national borders” (p. 4). As more and more people become connected across borders, the very idea of having borders has become to seem foolish and old-fashioned to some—particularly to young persons. Today, many young people embrace the idea of open borders (Burridge, 2010). They interact with people of different cultures every day, whether in person, using social media, leaving comments on posts on Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. Their methods of communication have made it possible to make friendships with people the world over. There are so many different ways for people to appreciate one another and to share information, all made possible by communication technology that the world does seem like one big community at this point to many people (Burridge, 2010). For this reason, the idea of stopping immigration seems an offensive idea: they do not view immigrants as bad but rather as new friends.

However, others have a much different take on immigration. They view the world as full of dangerous characters who cannot be trusted—especially people who are of a different race or ethnicity than that of the Caucasian Westerner. 9/11 really impacted many in the West in terms of how they viewed race. Suddenly Westerners felt vulnerable for the first time in a long time, and many mainstream media outlets gave them a race of people upon whom they could project their fears and newly risen hatred—the Muslim population. Abdelkraim (2002) shows that following 9/11 there was a tremendous wave of violence by Westerners against people who were believed to be Islamic: “there were well over 1,000 reported hate incidents and hate crimes, including murders, arson, vandalism, physical and verbal assaults, and telephoned threats” (p. 83). Some of these assaults ended in loss of life: “a Muslim man of Pakistani origin was shot dead in Texas, while an Indian Sikh gas station attendant who may have been mistaken for a Muslim was gunned down in Mesa, Arizona” (Abdelkraim, 2002, p. 83). The fact that one of the victims was an Indian Sikh shows the irrationality and ignorance behind these attacks.

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Racism brings out the worst in people.

Yet even the marginalized and oppressed population can find ways to rise above. Mantri (2011) notes that the Muslim population in the U.S., for instance, sought to work with government agencies to help provide information on terror cells. Many in the Muslim community were as outraged by the terrorists as others in the U.S. were: they no more condoned radical Islamic terrorism than anyone else. Just because they were Muslim themselves did not mean they thought it was okay to murder innocent people. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)…

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…society. Globalization has made it so that many people are open to the ideas of welcoming foreigners into their country. They see the world as one big neighborhood. Advancements in technology and the ability to communicate and spread information has made this possible. They are able to see people from other cultures and races, hear their stories and make friends. They are open to them and they see the idea of having open borders as a worthwhile one (Burridge, 2010). Others do not share their enthusiasm. They see immigrants as suspicious people of dubious background: not only are they of a race that has been associated with crime, terror and violence, but they come from a culture that is not Western and therefore has different values (Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Thus, there is a motive for people to look with fear upon immigrants of different races—whether they are Latino, Asian or Middle Eastern. They see globalization as a threat to their own way of life, their own culture, and their own values. Globalization to them is not a good thing because it means more people are moving about undermining the culture and society and civilization that has been built up over centuries in their native lands. The people of Germany, like the people of England, like people in the U.S. or in Italy or in Russia or China all have the same like-minded sense about nationhood, culture and identity. They want their people to pass on their culture to the next generation and they do not want their way of life to be disrupted by outsiders. And yet many of these nations were made by immigrants way back in time. The reality of the situation is thus very complex and cannot be easily disentangled. Nonetheless, some populations that have experienced marginalization and oppression want to still to turn the other cheek and offer their assistance to the people in their host country (Abdelkarim, 2002). They want to be united to these people and not….....

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