Reflection on learning and personal growth

¶ … English 2nd Lang)

I was most affected by the entire episode of American Slavery and the fact that institutionalized racist policies against African-Americans lasted and were so bitterly contested for so long in American history. Prior to the course, I was only aware that there was a period in early American history when African blacks had been exploited as human slaves and that there was segregation before the Civil Rights era in the 1960s. I did not think about it in detail or realize how long it lasted, how many lives it affected, and how brutal it was. I had known that the American Civil War was fought largely over slavery but I did not realize how much political negotiation was involved over it for so long before the Civil War; it was thought-provoking to realize that the slavery issue played such a great role in the admission of states to the Union.

Likewise, I had believed that the living conditions of American blacks must have improved beginning after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. It was shocking to me to learn that black people were still preventing from getting the rights they were supposed to have after 1865 by such organized illegal actions in so many states. I knew that the Ku Klux Klan existed as a racist group during the late 19th and early 20th century, but I was not aware that they had millions of members early in the 20th century and it was very disturbing to learn that they marched in large numbers in a parade right in front of the White House. It made me realize that what happened in Nazi Germany before and during the Second World War could have occurred in the United States just as easily under slightly different circumstances.

For decades after the Emancipation Proclamation, local and state governments throughout the former slave states enacted what Martin Luther King Jr. called immoral laws. The purpose of those laws was to prevent the former slaves from enjoying any of the rights they were supposed to get after the Civil War. "Jim Crow" laws prohibited blacks from voting and from owning property and even the American federal government discriminated in many ways against blacks. Only very recently, the U.S. federal government admitted that it had illegally refused loans to black farmers throughout the early and mid 20th century because of their race. Prior to this course, I was unaware that government authorities continued racist policies for so long and well into the middle of the 20th century.

In many parts of the world, footage of the American civil rights era is viewed in a different context that is highly inaccurate. Without explanation, many of the scenes of police fighting protestors can be perceived as the police defending themselves against protestors or responding to rioting. I recognized some of the same pieces of footage and descriptions of events in this course as events that I had seen before but failed to understand. I had no idea that black people were brutally assaulted for just sitting on the wrong bench or that the police were part of the problem at that time.

The new appreciation for the factual understanding of what the American civil rights era was about scared me in some ways because it reminded me that human beings have a certain natural capacity for illogical group loyalties and prejudices. It is something that I also recognize in my country of origin and also between different Asian races of people as well. The course also changed my view of the way that white and black Americans may view one another. Even in today's era of civil rights, racial equality, and appreciation for cultural diversity, there must be some resentment remaining in many black Americans, especially those who remember life in the U.S. before the 1960s.

2.

To be perfectly honest, I think society still has a long way to go before it can really become completely free of racism and other forms of intolerance. Even today, I believe that the way cultural sensitivity is promoted is somewhat ineffective. That is because people are only taught to respect one another's differences; they are not taught that their differences really do not matter. In my opinion, once you allow people to think that it is appropriate to have any sort of "pride" in their own race or culture, it is impossible for them to respect everyone else truly as equals. I think it is a contradiction to teach that superficial differences between people do not matter while at the same time encouraging people to take "pride" in their race or even in their nationality. In my opinion, the current approach of teaching that one's heritage is a legitimate source of personal identity and pride and also that everybody should respect one another equally is contradictory. Either race and ethnicity (etc.) are legitimate reasons to feel proud or they are not (in my view, they are not).