Psychology

Racial boundaries have existed in America since its inception.  From the early slaves on plantations to the Civil War to Martin Luther Kings I have a dream speech to Rodney King and the riots in L.A.  Even today as Americans are becoming more and more enlightened to the ideas of breaking down those boundaries, they still exist to an extent.  I am going to present three approaches that, ideally, would reduce racial prejudice and discrimination in this country.  The first one is the public school systems providing appropriate race education.  The second idea is companies providing privately funded mentorship.  And the last idea is residential affirmative action where as more low cost housing would be spread out throughout suburban communities.

Three Approaches to Reduce Racial Prejudice and Discrimination
Racism has been prevalent since Americas inception.  Although there have been many measures taken to reduce the racial barriers, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.  In this paper I am going to introduce three different approaches to reduce racial prejudice and discrimination.

I would like to see the public schools make a real effort to improve race relations and one way they could do this is by making mandatory specialized classes regarding racism.  These classes would explore the history of racial boundaries as well as invoke critical thinking on the part of the students to come up with real world solutions to breaking down these barriers.  In a sense these classes would be more philosophical than historical, however, teaching the history would be an integral part.

In Walter Mosleys book Working on the Chain Gang, he touches on history and education with the following

White America (and yellow and red and brown America too) should look at the black experience as a method for all of us to overcome the weight placed on us by those systems that control the realization of our labor.  The state of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the fight for equality  these are the lessons to be learned.

Going even further, it would be imminent that we take those lessons learned and really apply them to real life situations in todays world.  Getting the kids to think on a higher level and become enlightened themselves.

Responsibility shouldnt all fall on the shoulders of the government or volunteers, for that matter.  In Robert Putnams book Better Together he talks about the Experience Corp where retired volunteers would go into the ghettos to help the youth.  The volunteers encourage one another and exchange knowledge about what does and doesnt work with the kids. (Pg. 190).  Going one step further though is corporations funding mentorships where they would go into the urban setting and mentor a kid.  The mentorship would be integrated into the students regular school day and it would be an opportunity for them to get to a work site and learn what its like to make it in the real world.  Upon graduation of high school or even college they could be offered a job with that company.  In this situation, everybody wins.

Lastly, I feel that Residential Affirmative Action could go a long way toward integrating races within different communities and giving them opportunities that they wouldnt have in the ghettos.

What Americans must do, however, if we are at all serious about equality of opportunity, is to make it easier for those without substantial resources to have secure housing outside urban ghettos, to receive a high-quality education, and to have access to decent jobs.

Having low cost housing spread throughout different suburban communities would help to integrate people of different race versus having all of the affordable housing located in one or two areas within a community.  The latter only recreates what we already see in the urban settings with the projects, trailer courts, low-income apartments and the like.

In the book entitled The End of Blackness Debra J. Dickerson writes
For some whites, racism means nothing less than police attack dogs, George Wallace standing in the school  house door, and gentle seamstresses being carted off to jail for sitting in the front of the busfor some blacks, racism means a societal infrastructure organized and operated so as to distribute benefits, burdens, and resources according to a racial hierarchy, however unspoken.

In a perfect world, all of these ideas Ive presented, in harmony, would work to reduce racial prejudice and discrimination, however, the real change needs to come in the attitudes people have toward race as well as the opportunities minorities have to succeed in America.