Escutia 1

Natalie Escutia
Professor Lawson
English 113B
10 May 2016
Final Draft
Word Count: 1,576
All Lives Matter, the Racism Effect
African American teens in America are a targeted ethnicity affected by the outcome of
racism. Black teens in America deal with racism from white oppressors regularly, ultimately
resulting in a low-self esteem due to stress inflicted with it. White vs. Black is still an issue in
America; brutalities against African American students are an example of white oppressors
against African Americans. Multi-cultured students living in Los Angeles live with racism that is
spread from media to students in schools. White oppressors such as government and police
officers in America create labels of African American students as criminals. This mindset that
white oppressor has created result in the majority of Americans to label them as the bad guys,
resulting in affecting a students ability to excel academically. Racism specifically towards
African American students discourages them from doing well in school. Discouragement results
in a low mental health, low income, and alienation from society. Therefore, results in not being
treated fairly leading to high school dropout rates in African American students in America to
increase yearly.
In America, mostly white Americans seem to want to keep America with only white
Americans. America is filled with immigrants from all over the world; which causes anger

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for some of white Americans. African Americans have always conflicted with white
oppressors in America, because of their obvious skin differences. Shortly after President
Obamas presidency, it seemed that most Americans were not thrilled about having an
African American President. This caused protests and rage within America. Innocent African
American teens were targeted because of looking as if they were criminals or if they were
carrying guns. This has become a repeated pattern with violence in African American
students. In an article about racism and how our society in America impacts African
Americans called, The Killing of Mike Brown: Ferguson, Missouri and Color Blindness in
the Contemporary United States, shares how blind our society is from the real world.
(Johnson). Mike Brown was an eighteen year old student and police mistakenly shot him
because of their perception of all black men are criminals.

The people who cared in

Ferguson protested for "Black Lives Matter!" in Ferguson which caused many more riots
around America. (Johnson). Johnson notices how difficult it will be to end racism because
there is color blindness in America. In this article, the author states that there are more
African American murders by police than white males, "Nearly 20% of the Black people
killed were under the age of twenty one (compared to 8.7% of White people killed by
the police) killing of more black males than white by police." (Johnson). Mike Brown was an
African American student who was innocently killed by police along with many other
colored males in America. Mikes Browns case has led for color blindness to become more
aware. Johnson concludes his article by stating how the protest impacts for color blindness to
become more of an open subject in education and for racism to end. African American
students are impacted on the choice of continuing their education or dropping out due to the
difficulty of dealing with racism.

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Racism plays an important role on how one reacts to society emotionally and
physically. From racism, African American students deal with all the baggage of language
racism and regularly deal with it attending school. Researchers have shown a disadvantage of
being an African American in their career fields. In a article called, Career barriers are
defined as events or conditions, either within the person or in his or her environment, that
make career progress difficult in their recent meta-analysis examined racial and ethnic
differences on career aspirations and barriers. (Tovar-Murray, Ericka S Jenifer). As a
students dream of being financially successful; their dream is to have a job they love and
feel comfortable in. Unfortunately, career barriers lead them to a disadvantage; in conclusion
of having no support from their job it equals stress. African Americans ethnicity prohibits
them from reaching their full career potential by this career barrier. When African Americans
have this disadvantage this leads them to not being financially secure, and not getting the
best education. This causes for parents to enroll their child into bad public schools with low
budgets. In addition, the racial unfairness between police and students, African Americans
received lower income, Their median wealth increased by 2.4 percent from 2010 to 2013,
while the median wealth of black households decreased by 33.7 percent. (Kathel). A lower
income may outcome to less opportunities of receiving a better education. African Americans
get no sympathy from society by barriers, due to their skin color in schools. Americans
wanted to keep schools segregated whites only and another for colored students. Segregated
schools is a method for white Americans to retain their knowledge and stay away from black
students this changed things temporarily, but attempting to deal with school desegregation
without addressing the segregation of neighborhoods in which schools are located is bound to
fail. It can't succeed, says Rothstein. (Karaim). Although, Americans believed segregating

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schools would be the resolution, it was unavoidable when their neighborhoods were filled
with black students.
Another dilemma black students deal with in schools is hazing in colleges. This has
become so popular that frats are requiring students to go through with hazing to be accepted
into their fraternity. Hazing to college students seems fun at the moment but could have long
term effects In 2011 a Florida A&M University drum major was beaten to death by fellow
African-American band members, sparking concerns about the nature of hazing at mostly
black institutions. (Hosansky). Peer pressure puts strong pressure on black institution
colleges and causes students to drink more than they can handle. The need for social
acceptance is a powerful force for young people. Our brains react to peer exclusion much as
they respond to threats to physical health or food supply we perceive social rejection as a
threat to existence. At an unconscious level, students who are being hazed may feel like their
survival depends on being accepted into the group. (Hosansky). Low self-esteem makes
students desire to be accepted. Students do not acknowledge the outcome of their actions
which cause for harm. A healthy self esteem means valuing yourself to be the best version as an
individual. As result, when there is a group critiquing and belittling a race this may create a low
self esteem. Individuals in America of multi-cultured backgrounds face racism from most white
Americans because of nationality differences. Americans wanting to be the same as a race,
African Americans change this which cause for some of Americans to be frustrated. African
Americans in America are often seen as villains; as an example in an article called Black
Racism, Self-esteem, and the Adjustment of White Students in Higher Educatio n by Patton
O. Garriott informs us on how important it is for all students to retain a healthy self esteem.
Garriott then shares a sample of a survey done at a white school of how white high school

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students feel towards black students. To conclude the survey there were more white students
that felt more depressed and scared of being with black students. (Garriot). In order to stop
this judgment of black students Garriott shares that specifically white students must change
their attitude towards blacks. Programs such as cultured classes create more of a positive
environment; Clubs that define racism potentially stop racism towards black students. Black
students are limited to education due to the racial profile white students have of them. With
racism from white students, black students create a low self esteem thus leading to
depression. A healthy self esteem is important to staying in school. Garriotts article is
important because it shares the causes of racism from whites increasing the chance of black
students to drop out by low self esteem.
In order for racism to decrease American schools can be more informative, so that
racism so that racial comments do not go unnoticed. Racial comments build into low self
esteem creating stress. With stress African Americans cannot give their education the best
effort because of racism. This mindset from white oppressors causes most of America to label
them as that and affects students ability to excel academically. Racism towards African
American students discourages them from doing well in school by obtaining a poor mental
health, low income, and alienation from society. A poor mental health has lead for African
American students to cause them to drop out. White oppressors need to acknowledge racism in
order for racism to decrease in America.

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Works Cited
Garriott P, Love K, Tyler K. Anti-Black racism, self-esteem, and the adjustment of
White students in higher education. Journal Of Diversity In Higher Education [serial online].
March 2008;1(1):45-58. Available from: PsycARTICLES, Ipswich, MA. Accessed March 1,
2016.
Hosansky, D. (2013, February 8). Preventing hazing. CQ Researcher, 23, 133-156. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/
Johnson K, Hoyer M, and Heath B (2014) Local police involved in 400 killings per year.
USA Today. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/
2014/08/14/police-killings-data/14060357/ (accessed 15 October 2014).
Katel, P. (2015, May 20). Race relations. CQ Researcher. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/
Karaim, R. (2014, September 5). Race and education. CQ Researcher, 24, 721-744. Retrieved
from http://library.cqpress.com/
Tovar-Murray, Darrick, Ericka S Jenifer, Jara Andrusyk, Ryan D'Angelo, and Tia King.
"Racism-Related Stress and Ethnic Identity as Determinants of African American
College Students' Career Aspirations." Career Development Quarterly, 60.3 (2012):
254-262

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