A Colorblind Society

Hacker (1992) believes there are two nations in America today, one black and one white, and he notes first that race has been an American obsession since the time the first Europeans arrived on these shores and found the Native Americans. Race became a different sort of issue when slaves were imported from Africa and forced to work in the fields. The fact of slavery in itself has been one of the major reasons for the continuing obsession with race and for the way race has become a social and political football:

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t is presumed in America and in other race-centered societies non-whites are not legitimate powerholders and tend to abuse their privileges when they are given access (Stanfield, 1991, 251). White America has a narrow view of what black Americans are like, and this contributes to racist attitudes and practices: There are two dominant images of blacks in America. One is negative, which are images of poverty, crime, and drugs. And the other is positive, that is if you can sing, dance, play football, basketball, or baseball (Fraser, 1991, 75). Almaguer (1994) notes how racial divisions were politicized in California between the white and Hispanic populations as well as among other ethnic groups: The diverse population that settled in California during the last half of the nineteenth century quickly entered into a competitive struggle over social resources and group position within the state's new class structure. Unequal access to the mobility opportunities engendered by capitalist development unleashed bitter conflict among the various ethnic populations: Native American, European, Mexican, African, Chinese, and Japanese (Almaguer, 1994, 29). Recent evidence of the complexity of the racial divide in California can be
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Approximate Word count = 2650
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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