Well folks in the wonderful world of academic life at U o M, I am posting the blog that I did this past week for an assignment given to me in my Sociology class.  So far none of my classmates have responded to it and if there are any responces to it, I'll post them at a later date.

Racism in Society-Assignment for Sociology 3422
By Paul K. Fischer, University of Memphis
January 25, 2007

With all the talk about racism between various ethnic groups, the appearance of racial double standards, and in light of the “Duke 3 Lacrosse Rape Case”-maybe its time to take the PC wheels off and come up with some solutions rather than making excuses.

When someone like Bill Cosby criticizes openly problems affecting his ethnicity, he is immediately branded as a racist. The fact that he points out the high illegitimate birthrate, poor educational performance, and etc…, he is subjected to the vilest of ethnic slurs, and most of them come from within his ethnic community who will not or cannot come up with a workable solution of their own.

When other ethnic groups agree with him, particularly whites, they are also immediately subjected to the same charge of racism and simply dismissed as having nothing of value to contribute the nations dialog on race relations and it ends up with; “Just shut up, apologize for your ancestors that owned slaves, and donate something to the cause”.

The issue isn’t that whites are more racist at their core (even though there are racists in every ethnic group); they do exercise white prejudice that has nothing to do with the color of a person’s skin, but the content of their character. It is this same prejudice that causes them to be ashamed of the Aryan Brotherhood, and the KKK in their ethnic group, as well as despise the application of double standards in the court system (e.g. Duke 3), criminal activity and the low life’s causing it.

The tragedy is that with a society having millions of kids without fathers, a divorce rate at 50%+, increasing drug abuse, and a lack of desire to succeed with a high illiteracy rate and language skills that will hinder a person from being able to succeed in a global market place. These are the problems that affect everyone, and are not restricted to any one ethnic group; when we stop making excuses for this behavior and start providing solutions for the problems will things start to improve such as:

1) Those that truly want to succeed will be able to rise to the top and those that do not want to work hard will fall by the wayside.

2) It will eliminate the animosity between various ethnic groups because everyone will held to the same standard, and anyone that advocates having a different standard based on ethnicity can be branded for what they truly are: A racist.

3) And finally; The people that are succeeding at a high level will not have their accomplishments demeaned by others because they met the equal standards and have proven that they can master the work before them. If society continues to demand that each ethnic group have its own standards, then any group that has a lower admission standard will be subject to scrutiny by the other ethnic groups and may not be considered as equal. It is a valid concern that is not based on racism, but on character since there are different standards being applied (e.g. University of Michigan Law School).

If more people of all ethnic groups would be willing to look critically at the problems facing society as a whole, rather than as ethnic group vs. ethnic group or us vs. them, this would go a long way to healing the racial divide that separates us in this country. Consider this; When was the last time you spoke up when a member of your ethnic group made a slur to another person? Silence in condoning the behavior is just as bad as the racist that made the slur openly.

Over 25 years ago, Bill Cosby did a presentation on race where he put down every ethnic group by stereotype, and at the end of each group he would simply say that they should be put away somewhere and not killed. In the end after every group had been put away, he stated that there are now only two people left: You and Me.