What do you think of race relations in America? Please share your thoughts–especially for global readers.
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The recent events in Baltimore, Maryland highlight and underscore the deep complexity and confusion of race relations in America. Having traveled abroad extensively throughout my life, I’ve had the pleasure of exchanging world views with many people from an array of different countries and cultures.
I’d like to explore these views about America more fully later in the article.
For now, back to Baltimore. There are almost too many sad aspects of this messy situation to list. The highlights might be:
- The death of another young African American during an encounter with police.
- Peaceful protests that turned dangerously violent.
- Costly destruction to neighborhoods already reeling from decades of poverty and neglect.
- A military presence, yet again, in an American city.
But the situation in Baltimore is not the same as the situation that played out in Ferguson, Missouri last year. Baltimore is a majority African American city run mainly by African American officials.
It’s truly hard to peel back the layers of this onion and find anything approximating a singular reason for what happened.
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The awfulness that has descended lately upon Baltimore is, I think, symptomatic of the larger challenge of race relations in America as a whole. If there were one lever to pull that would fix things, it would have been pulled by now. Depending on whom you ask, you might hear the following remarks about this issue in America:
- America tolerated slavery until the 1860s and fought a civil war about it. Its culture and economy are rooted in racism.
- America has passed some of the most progressive and restorative civil-rights legislation in the world. Its systems are designed to give those who work hard a fair chance at success.
- American cities live with appalling inequalities between blighted, ghetto neighborhoods and lavish, gated communities. The barriers between these communities often cut across racial lines.
- America has an African American president who rose to power based on skill, merit, and mastery of the system. Anyone truly can become president.
- America incarcerates more people than any developed country in the world by an enormous factor. Its political and economic systems thrive on racial injustices that promote recidivism.
It’s a landscape filled with bizarre contradictions and notorious imbalances.
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Back to traveling abroad, I learned that many people I spoke to about America had quite interesting perspectives on the country–ones only available to people not directly a part of the system.
So, with the horror of Baltimore and other recent flash points of racial discord in the US in the backdrop, what do you think about race relations in America? I would especially love to hear from those readers who lives or work outside of the country.
Please share your comments below.
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Photo credit: Flickr/Nick Page