Is racism still an issue today

Is racism still alive or have we combated its existence? It's a question I've pondered several times, a question I've provoked my classmates to consider. It's also a question that so many people reject with a simple, single-syllable 'yes' or 'no' answer, but is any issue of race relations all that easy? The implementation of black codes and Jim Crow laws and segregation laws took time to create and enforce; so who, then, is to say that with the flick of a pen on an official document in 1964 eons of racial discrimination were at once erased? No one.


When I talk to my coworkers, colleagues and classmates about this issue, and they answer with a definite 'yes' that our generation has overcome the battle of racism fought by some of our parents and grandparents, it makes me feel at once elated and uneasy.

Elated that our generation would grow to be so comfortable with race, but uneasy that we have grown so comfortable with the idea that racism is no longer an issue.

One answer I often receive is based firmly in the fact that segregation laws are no longer in place. Whites and blacks can eat at the same restaurants, use the same restrooms, attend the same schools, so clearly racism is no more.

My fear, however, is that our grasp of the idea of racism has not in any way, shape, form or fashion evolved in correlation to the concept of racism in and of itself.

Here we are focusing on racism as it is practiced on an individual basis, neglecting to acknowledge the institutionalization of racism into our businesses, our churches, our schools, our media outlets.

In essence, we as individuals no longer have to practice racism. The institutions do it for us.

My greatest fear is that because our generation is not fighting the same civil rights battle that the generations before us have fought, we now deny the reality of the existence of racism altogether.

No, our battle will not be the Civil Rights battle of the '50s and '60s. It's not the battle for voting rights for blacks. It will not be the battle to end segregation. No. Our battle - the battle of our generation as it pertains to race relations - will be a battle of complacency.

It will be a battle of learning not to actively seek racism, but at the same time learning to recognize it when we see it and to see it for what it is.

Ours is the battle of accepting the fact that just because something is not so blatantly obvious, that does not negate its existence. This is the culmination of all my race-related nightmares.