Respond to two of your colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways:

• Share an insight you gained from having read a colleague’s post about a group other than the one that you chose.
• Share a different perspective and ask a probing or clarifying question.
• Challenge responses: Explain why and how you see things differently.
• Build on insights from your colleagues and offer data/evidence that further clarify an issue.

POST A

The group I choose to focus on this week’s discussion is African American. There are more and more cases of discrimination happening in the world today, and unfortunately, the world is not as accepting as it should be. My husband is African American, and he went through several unpleasant situations of discrimination. I came from the Jewish religion (which I will discuss with this group in the next week’s discussion. African Americans used to be used for slavery, people used and still categorize them by calling them unappropriated names and labels, and they had to fight for fundamental human rights.

A few historical events are the civil rights movement (1963)- this is one of the most memorable moments for black history when Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his historic “I Have a Dream” speech. The civil rights movement should of end racism and discrimination towards African Americans in the United States. “Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned a world where his children would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” (Biography, 2021, para.1). Civil rights (1965) where African Americans have the right to vote by the law. Boycott (1955)- Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a White passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, and was arrested. The event led to the Montgomery bus boycott, which led to the integrating of the public bus transit system. Barack Obama’s election – in 2008, Barack was the first African American to get elected as a president of the United States.

Current examples of disparities in treatment for African Americans include police discrimination. Currently, the statistics show that black women and men have a higher chance of getting killed by police than white men and women. “Black men are about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police over the life course than are white men. Black women are about 1.4 times more likely to be killed by police than are white women” (Edwards, Lee& Esposito,2019, Para.12). With the current election results, many republican states are passing restrictions on voting laws that would heavily impact African Americans. African Americans influenced the election by using mail-in ballots. Many states are eliminating mail-in ballots or limiting them to one mail the ballot to a county. In a rural county where it is less populous and predominately white, there is better access to the ballot. A ballot within an urban area that is more populous, and a higher African American population will have limitations on who can access it.

African Americans represent 13% of the population, “they traditionally had been heavily concentrated in central cities rather than suburbs” (Marger, 2015 p.180). Unemployment rates from 2019 – 2020 stand at 6.1 percent VS 3.2 percent for white ethnic Americans. Whites made up the majority of the labor force (77 percent). Blacks and Asians constituted an additional 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Employment; 61.0 percent for Whites, and 58.7 percent for Blacks. Education: 41 percent of Whites VS. 32 percent of Blacks graduated from college. Professional jobs: 41 percent of employed Whites VS. 32 percent of employed Blacks. Blacks continued to have considerably lower earnings than Whites. Statistics are taken from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Household income based on the course book shows that Black’s income is lower than whites and poverty, which is higher in the Black’s population and lower in the whites (Marger, 2015 p.182-182). Unemployment rates in the Black population are more elevated than whites and wealth, which is way lower in the blacks’ population (Marger, 2015 184-185). The graph on page 186 shows that the percentage of people graduating high school is higher among whites than Blacks.

African Americans will face voting challenges as many Republican states will germander districts and create voting laws to limit access African Americans are afforded. African Americans will face housing opportunities and educational opportunities that continuously lead to institutional racism. Policing and court ruling irregularities in the African American community have become more prevalent and more noticeable, particularly with the emergence of social media.

POST B

Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing ethnic category in America, according to research from Marger (2014, p. 209). With the majority of Hispanic American’s being low-income, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) played a significant impact on the families by providing health coverage to more Hispanic American children. Even with the huge positive impact of the ACA, this group still falls behind other groups regarding their insurance coverage, resulting in several health issues, for example, obesity (Mather, 2016).

Hispanic American’s have always remained under negative stereotypes; the basis of the discrimination and treatment has a lot to do with the manner in which they became part of our society (Marger, 2014, p. 231). Some people argue that they lack education and economics even after living in the United States for several generations; this results in Hispanic Americans being limited to working-class jobs (Ortiz & Telles, 2012).

According to research, Hispanic American men have a consistently higher average of working or looking for work than other Americans in the United States since 1980; likely because “the population of Hispanic men ages 16 and older includes a higher percentage of immigrants who come to the country to work” (Mora & Davila, 2018). Due to the Great Recession, Hispanic American’s income fell for several years; the median salary for Hispanic America’s in 2007 was $28,400 and fell to $26,400 by 2013, while U.S. born Hispanics median salary was $32,000 in 2007 and fell to $28, 800 by 2013. By 2017 both Hispanic American’s and Hispanic born in the U.S.’s median salary rose to $30,000. “The experiences of U.S.-born and foreign-born workers did not vary as dramatically among whites, blacks, and Asians as they did among Hispanics” (Kochhar, 2019).

POST C

The treatment of Asian Americans has a pretty abysmal history. Starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act signed into law by President Arthur. This act declared the Chinese as ineligible to work and suspended their naturalization eligibility. After the Opium war and a crashing in their economy, and then also following a crop failure in 1852 in China, many Chinese workers made their way to the West coast for the gold rush. By 1870, violence had broken out due to the arrival of so many Chinese people. These people were also paying taxes and working like citizens, but like Native Americans, were unable to testify in court and thus unable to prove the discrimination they were facing. In 1902, all Chinese immigration was made illegal. When 1924 came about, even more Asian groups were made ineligible to immigrate to the US. None of this was repealed until World War II (History.com Staff).

            Japanese Internment Camps in World War II are another terrible example of the treatment Asian Americans have faced. After the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941, President Roosevelt issued an Executive Order that resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans- although the government called these “relocation centers.” As Japanese Americans were sent away with very little notice, most people lost everything they’d built. Nearly 70,000 of the imprisoned Japanese Americans were American citizens already with no prior charges. In 1988, President Reagan and Congress finally acknowledged the injustice of the internment (archives.gov). 

            Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in America, projected to represent 14% of the population by 2065. Many Asian Americans live in California and on the West Coast. The labor percentages for Asian Men are very similar to other men in America, with Asian Women working slightly less. Pre-pandemic, more than 1.4 million Asian American women worked and held jobs. However, many Asian women make less money than women of other ethnic groups, and depending on where in Asia the women are from, they stand to make even less. On top of that, only 53% of Asian American workers are eligible for FMLA, which puts further economic strain on them (Bleiweis). A lot has happened in the COVID-19 pandemic, however, and the scapegoating that many Asian Americans have experienced is likely to only further hinder their economic growth. It already has, and the effects will likely be long lasting.