Race

How relevant is race in United s Today? There is perhaps a very few other issues as pertinently and vigorously discussed in literature, sociology and anthropology then the relevance of Race to American society. Historically, as we know, race and issues of apartheid has been matter of great social degeneration and inhumanity in America perpetuated for unfounded reasoning for generations together.
Stories like Desiree’s Baby speak volumes about how race and prejudice was so much a part of everyday practice in America. In the story, the happiness of having a child lasts only until Armand finds the features of a quadroon in the baby and ultimately abandons his wife and the child only because he thinks Desiree does not have a pure white inheritance:
” It means,” he answered lightly, ” that the child is not white; it means that you are not white (Choplin 664).”
It is also important to note the significant line which defines the entire theme of the story: “ Moreover he no longer loved her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his home and his name (Choplin 664)”.
Moreover, the high handed emotional reactions incited by racialism is echoed by poems of yore such as Let America be America Again by Langston Hughes. Strong laments over their fate for being black can be seen in such works:
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers! (Line 34-37)
However, the question that still seems to persists is whether the dream of letting “ America be America Again” is now fulfilled. Whether or not the dream of seeing America in its original beauty and Letting “…America be the dream the dreamers dreamed/ Let(ing) it be that great strong land of love/ Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme” has been fulfilled (Huges 6-8).
Perhaps it has. The America that we look at today is the America of diversity, democracy and racial multiplicity. There is perhaps not a single race of this earth that hasn’t walked the street of New York. There is no race that has not had the privilege of calling itself an American. That is because there is no more an identity associated with being an exclusive “ American”. People are African-American, Japanese-American, Chinese-American, Indian-American and numerous others. Whatever country or race we add as prefix to “ American” is an American! The question of apartheid is now almost dead.
Being read in the eyes of the world as one of the most diverse civilization of this earth, America is in its best today as far as its wholesome nature of unification and equality is concerned. That is because, there is no culture of this world that America does not have. African is one of them. And any instance of even slight consideration of blacks as primitive to white seems to be a long forgotten past.
The most important testimony of this fact is the presidency of an African American for the first time in the history of America. President Barack Obama is a living example of the ultimate victory of centuries-old injustices. When the most powerful man of American (or the world) is a black, there can be a very little argument that the prejudice against the black in American is no more prevalent.
Works Cited
Choplin, Kate. ” Desirees Baby.” Schilb, John and John Clifford. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 4th Edition. Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 661-665.
Huges, Langston. ” Let America be America Again.” Schilb, John and John Clifford. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 4th Edition. Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 1062-1065.