While it typically escapes our conscious realization, our attitudes, beliefs, and values, even about the most fundamental and obvious matters are dictated by the social environment in which we are socialized. The reading also touches upon the phenomenon of racial prejudice and includes a photograph of Jackie Robinson, in connection with what the text describes as his "historic" breakthrough of the color barrier that once existed in professional baseball. That particular element of the text reminded me of another reading, the 1928 story by Zora Neale Hurston, "How it Feels to Be Colored Me." Whereas the assigned text discusses the phenomenon of racism in American society during the pre-Civil Rights era, Hurston's account provides an important first-hand perspective...

In my opinion, as important as it is to discuss these types of issues academically, the analytical perspective can never fully capture the human tragedy of second-class citizenship the same way as first-hand accounts such as Hurston's.
References

Grunwald, M. "The Party of No." Time, Vol. 180, No. 10 (2012): 42 -- 46. Retrieved

online from:

http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/23/the-party-of-no-new-details-on-the-gop-plot-to-obstruct-obama/

Hurston, Z.N. (1928). How it Feels to Be Colored Me. Retrieved

online from:

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/grand-jean/hurston/chapters/how.html