Racism is an important issue that infects the society we live in. Racism affects many minority groups with African Americans tending to see the most of it. Since the early civilizations, black people have not have been treated with the upmost respect that would be given to white folk or many other ethnicities. Black people have not been treated as humans or other individuals in society, instead they are viewed as more of a property. Racism has always been an issue in our society which stems back to the roots of America and the early expeditioners. Black people were taken from their land and used for work which deprived them of their freedoms and family. These acts did not bother us because we didn’t see blacks as equals to the fellow white men. Racism now a day is not as strenuous as it was a while ago but racism is still one of the biggest issues we face and the tough part about it is getting rid of it. The first question that we face is how can we decrease the weight of racism and extinguish it from our society? To answer that question, we also must answer how it really all started. Many organizations and movements have been started to decrease racism and its effect, but these movements seems to cause more of a divide in our minds. The best way to extinguish racism is to identify how it has started, evolved, and then to create movements or organizations to inform everyone and the contributors of the ways to rid us of this injustice that we have always had to live with. The main contributors being the ones to start it all and enforce it.

Carmichael explains that the missionaries who explored a long time ago thought their ways were the accepted ways and so where ever they would go, they would try to force their customs on the societies they encountered on the journey. These missionaries would end up leaving owning the land when they arrived and it was never theirs (316). This is the formation of racism in its early stages that was created by the white man. The concept of race was brought on upon us from the European descendants to “enforce subordinate status on minority groups” (“Emergence of Whiteness on America’s College Campuses”). The white man never realized this act of racism but the ones affected did. That goes for now as well. The ones affected seem to be the ones who are aware so to decrease the issue of racism there needs to be more people aware of the issue, especially the ones who started it.      

Stokely Carmichael was an activist for equal rights and he gave a speech named “Black Power” at UC Berkley in 1966. Carmichael explains early in his speech that they aren’t just looking to integrate, but they are also attempting to end white supremacy. The goal is to not gain a seat next to the white man but to achieve a greater accomplishment than the white man and exceed their power (Carmichael 314). The middle of Carmichaels speech explains his main questions to how we can get rid of racism. “How can white people move to start making the major institutions that they have in this country function the way it is supposed to?” “Can white people move inside their own community and start tearing down racism where in fact it does exist” (Carmichael 318)? These are questions he raises to illuminate the idea of racism but the answers to these questions could solve the issue itself. So many movements have originated in order to achieve equality and the main one being the Civil Rights Movement. While this movement accomplished a lot, its strength could have been felt more if it were organized around more white people in order to inform them. The Black lives matter movement centers around black people coming together to make aware the issue of racism and how they stand together. While this is a very productive strategy, black people already know of the harsh racism that they face, so informing the ones who do not have this knowledge and contribute to racism could enlighten them to stop. That is why Carmichael believes the best strategy to rid us of racism is informing the ones who cause it. Addressing the issue to the people who start it rearranges it to where now both sides are fighting for racial equality and are moving towards the same goal. The ones who should educate the whites on racism should be the most affected. Black people should strive to educate whites on the injustices faced. Then they should come together to create a movement of both ethnicities that can draw in everyone’s attention from around the world.  

 Carmichael explains that the missionaries who explored a long time ago thought their ways were the accepted ways and so where ever they would go, they would try to force their customs on the societies they encountered on the journey. These missionaries would end up leaving owning the land when they arrived and it was never theirs (316). This is the formation of racism in its early stages that was created by the white man. The concept of race was brought on upon us from the European descendants to “enforce subordinate status on minority groups” (“Emergence of Whiteness on America’s College Campuses”). The white man never realized this act of racism but the ones affected did. That goes for now as well. The ones affected seem to be the ones who are aware so to decrease the issue of racism there needs to be more people aware of the issue, especially the ones who started it.      

Stokely Carmichael gave a speech to predominately white students at UC Berkley. A main question he raises is “can white people move inside their own community and start tearing down racism where in fact it does exist” (Carmichael 318)? This was a statement made prior to institutions creating classes on white studies which identifies the issues of racism and how it was started to white students in the class. George Burson states that the “first Europeans came to the New World and met the Indians, they considered them different and therefore inferior” (Burson 35). This single act was not directed to early African Americans, but it creates the first roots of racism that grows stronger over many ethnicities. Black people throughout a lot of time have only been seen as subjects of labor and have been treated as peasants who were destined to only work. Imprisonment or slavery are the early forms of racism that dictated a black person’s life and they eventually grew to other standards. All these forms of racism build up over time to where it starts being a custom to not look equally at other ethnicities and to look at the white population as the ideal group to strive to be like. That being said, the African American population is the largest minority in the United States and so it is not hard to identify racism within that minority.

With racism dating back to earl exploration, we are able to identify how it has evolved throughout history and has spread through the white man. It is thought that being white is accepted and anything else is not which is harshly unorthodox but in a way has shown to be the case. George Burson states that in the 1950s, white education expenses exceeded $46 million while black education was only at $26 million (36). This shows that the government decided that it was more important to have whites educated rather than black people which is not giving them a fair chance. In order for things like this to not occur, we shouldn’t go throughout black neighborhoods urging participation in social movements. Carmichael believes we should move through white neighborhoods bringing awareness to racism and its effect on some people. Showing white people a hands on experience of someone going through racism everyday can change their perspective completely. A student who took a class at UC Berkley said that “this is the first class that implicated me and showed me how I contributed to oppression. It taught me that white people are racist and the best way to dismantle it is to educate other white people so that antiracist whites are no longer in the minority” (“Emergence of Whiteness on America’s College Campuses”). This statement made by the students shows that once a white person is educated on the racial issues our country faces, they are more sympathetic to those issues and they intend to change their thought process toward black people so that they are seen the exact same as the white man. 

When you want to fix a problem, you must first find its cause and extinguish it. We have now found out that the cause of racism began with white people and how they treated the early world. Now to solve the issue of racism, we must inform other whites of the issue and how they can come together and make the change rather than black people who are only affected, because informing the ones who cause the problem, can stop the problem right there. Many individuals around the country believe that to counterattack racism they must come together as one and stand up to the injustice. While this is a productive stance at attacking racism, this creates more of a divide portrayed by the media due to the movement they’re taking that only consists of the ones affected. The best movement to push past racism should consists of those affected and unaffected personnel so that the message gets across to those being racist, as well as taking it in. Those who are uneducated about the issue of racism mostly consist of white people and so taking the proper actions at educating them on how racism began and how racist acts hurt others is a key step in eliminating racism. Carmichaels main stance in his speech was that the problem lies with the white people and how their efforts to improve racism has not worked because they have come about it in the wrong way. Carmichael gives examples of how modern day peace corp missionaries come into ghettos and try to give their society a boost and turn it around out of poverty (316).  This is another way of society just trying to integrate that ghetto into the white society and follow the common path. That has shown to never work and that is because there are less jobs provided to black people and with less jobs comes less money, and anyone with less money will have a tough time getting out of poverty. Unfortunately, this is a common case for a lot of families. For efforts like these to start working, white people must stop trying to push black people to follow the white ideal path and to follow their own. For this to work, white people must take blame for the creation of racism and work to dismantle it by practices ways of accepting everyone as an equal human being. Once this is attained, black people will have more opportunities for jobs which will decrease the level of poverty we see around the country. These actions should cause an end to ghettos around the nation because with no more racism, whites and blacks can come together in a single community and work together to achieve accomplishments that have never been conquered, putting an end to racism and bringing unity to us all.    
