Racial Discrimination

Introduction

Racism is any attitude or action, whether conscious or unconscious, which subordinates a group of individuals based on their skin color or race. Racial discrimination is the treatment of a person or a group of persons based on their race. Racial discrimination involves the treatment that an employee or an applicant gets, since he or she belongs to a different race. It can also involve treating a person in a wrong way, since he or she is married to a person belonging to a different race.

The law, however, forbids racial discrimination when it comes to employment, hiring, pay, firing, promotions, job assignments, lay off, training, fringe benefits, or any other employment conditions. This paper discusses racial discrimination issues by studying of a case and finding a law that pertains the racial discrimination case.

Racial discrimination covers the four areas. These are direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimization. In case of direct discrimination, it involves treating a person less favorably due to their perceived or actual race. It can also be due to the race of a person he or she is associated with. Indirect discrimination can happen, when there is a policy, practice, or procedure that applies to all workers, but has particular disadvantages for people belonging to a certain race. A good example of this would be that job applicant requirements, where the applicants are required to have GCSE English and Maths Certificate. This would be disadvantageous to the people, whose countries dont offer the GCSE syllabus. Harassment happens when a particular unwanted conduct that is related to the race has a purpose and effect of violating the dignity of some individuals. This can happen by creating an environment that is hostile, intimidating, humiliating, and degrading for certain individuals (Kamali, 2009). Victimization happens, when there is an unfair treatment of the employees, who at a time have supported a complainant of racial discrimination.

Historically, racism has been defined as a situation, where people believe that race determines humans capacities. Some people believe that a particular race is inferior or superior to another, and that people should be treated differently according to the race that they belong to. Researchers claim that people are not born knowing what racial discrimination is, just as they are born without knowing right and wrong. Social and economic status can also lead to the racial discrimination. Many people tend to judge other people depending on where they live, the amount of money they make, and the type of cars they drive. A good example is that in America the number of Americans living below the poverty level was around 12.2 % in 2004. The number of African Americans living below the poverty level in the same year was 24.4%. This was almost twice the national level. This makes some Americans feel superior to the African Americans. This may make people categorize that all the African Americans are poor, since the number is so high. They, therefore, discriminate them socially (Healey, 2008).

Racial Discrimination Case

In the first case of racial discrimination, a white customer, who was suspected of shop lifting, was taken to the security area for interrogations. A friend, who was also white, came to her intervention, where she started yelling at the store employee, who was black. She went to an extent of using the N-word on the black employee. The black employee reacted by slapping the abusive customer right in her face. The police arrested both customers and the black employee was fired for violating the no violence policy and no physical contact with the client policy. The fired employee filed a racial discrimination case under Title VII. He claimed that the company was promoting a racially abusive environment, and it encouraged hate speech by firing the harassment victim. The court, however, ruled against the employee. Even though the employees reaction by slapping the customer was unjustified, it is clear that the employee acted out of anger caused by the customers verbal abuse. The racial abuse act was against the racial discrimination act of 1975.

Racial Discrimination Act 1975

The racial discrimination act of 1975 is an act that relates to the racial discrimination elimination and elimination of other discriminations. The act was opened for signature in 1965, on December 21. The racial discrimination act was an international convention that was used to eliminate all racial discrimination forms. The racial discrimination act is desirable and is in pursuance with all the relevant power of the parliament. This includes the power to make the laws that respect the external affairs and with respect to the people of different races. These are the people, it deemed to make any special laws for, with respect to immigration. It is also required to make provisions that are contained in the act, which prohibit racial and other forms of discrimination. The senate, the queen, and the house of representatives in Australia have enacted the act. The racial discrimination act says that all people should be treated equally, regardless of their race, ethnic, and skin color. They should have equal opportunities in employments and other public duties.

Effects of Racial Discrimination

Many studies have shown that people experiencing chronic racial discrimination suffer from mental health problems. The study also showed that many black people in general have bad mental health. This is because of the two mechanisms. The first mechanism is that when a person is exposed to chronic racial discrimination, it leads to the person experiencing more racial discrimination on the daily basis. The second mechanism is that it results to the person having accumulation of negative events across their minds on the daily basis, usually from friends and family to finances and health. When the two mechanisms are combined, it outs the black people at a higher risk of experiencing daily symptoms of anxiety, depression, and negative moods. In most cases, racism results to each individual being subjected to the racial discrimination having hatred, which could lead to hate crimes. Most individuals subjected to racial discrimination usually suffer from low self-esteem, since they start hating themselves. A number of people may contemplate suicide, since they suffer from depression. Other result to having eating disorders, which may lead to bad health in their bodies. They are most likely to have fear going to the public places, including school. Just as seen in the case, the people subjected to the discrimination may result to fighting their offenders, where they may use guns or knives. This would lead to the level of criminal activity going up (Thomas, 2007).

Prohibition of Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination is unlawful. It is unlawful for any person to involve in any act that involves exclusion, restriction, distinction, or preference, which is based on color, race, nation, or descent of ethnic origin. This is any act that has the purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition or exercising on equal footing any human rights in social, economic, or political affairs.

Summary

Racial discrimination is the treatment of a person or group of people based on their race. Racial discrimination covers the four areas. These are direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment, and victimization. Direct discrimination involves poor treatment of others due to their race, while indirect discrimination happens, when a policy is given that is disadvantageous to other people. Harassment happens, when a person has a bad conduct that is aimed at causing other people to feel inferior.

Victimization happens, when some employees are treated badly after supporting people or a complainant about racial discrimination. A number of people believe that a particular race is inferior or superior to another, and that people should be treated differently according to the race that they belong to. Racism can be caused by social and economic status. This is where many people tend to judge other people based on the place they live, the amount of money they make, and the type of cars that they drive. The racial discrimination act of 1975 is an act that relates to the racial discrimination elimination and elimination of other discriminations. The act was opened for signature in 1965, on December 21. The racial discrimination act was an international convention that was used to eliminate all racial discrimination forms. Racism has many effects, where most are based on the two mechanism. The first mechanism is when a person is exposed to chronic racial discrimination, it leads to the person experiencing more racial discrimination on the daily basis. The second mechanism results to the person having accumulation of negative events across their minds on the daily basis, usually from friends and family to finances and health. These two mechanisms shows that the black people are at a high risk of having stress and anxiety. Racism result to each individual being subjected to the racial discrimination having hatred, which could lead to hate crimes.

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Conclusion

Racism can have many negative effects on a person. It can make the person subjected to the discrimination to become bitter and violent. It can also lead to the destruction of the persons self-esteem, which can lead to creation of a defeatist nature that is horrifying. Racial discrimination destroys the cohesion in the community; thus, creates division in the society. It is hard for one to change the way he or she looks, which makes it hard for them, since they cannot do anything about their physical appearance. It would be advisable for the governments to find the way to deal with racial discrimination.

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