"Liberalism vs. Inegalitarian Traditions in American Politic
"Liberalism vs. Inegalitarian Traditions in American Political Culture, With Regards to Racial and Ethnic Minorities" American political culture is wrought with conflict over the competing traditions of liberalism and it's contradictory inegalitarian ideologies. Liberalism holds most of our political ideals, such as freedom, equality, and individualism, but these ideals often clash with the inegalitarian practices that remain from our troubled political past, for example sexism, racism, homophobia, and classism. Nowhere is this conflict more obvious than in issues relating to the many racial and ethnic minorities that make up America. The nation is founded on ideas such as "all men are created equal." However, America has historically been unfair to minorities. A prime example would be slavery. Not only did slavery infringe on the idea of equality, but it also stole away the freedom of the slaves, despite the fact that freedom from a despotic king was one of the reasons the founders enumerated for their departure from allegiance to the British crown ("Declaration of Independence"). Tocqueville feared that American "democracy" would never reach African-American's and that this was "the most formidable evil threateni
But for other Americans, especially the Muslim and Arab-American minorities, there were extra fears, not of terrorists, but of other Americans and renewed inegalitarian racism! After the discovery that the hijackers were Arabs or Arab-Americans, a wave of anti-Arab, anti-Muslim sentiment seemed to sweep the country. Since the September 11th attacks, "people who look Middle Eastern and South Asian, whatever their religion or nation of origin, have been singled out for harassment, threats, and assaults" ("Victims of Mistaken Identity. ng the nation's future" (Smith, 1993, pg. However, as in this case, other's chances may be lowered, causing inverse inequality. It would seem that no minority has been immune to the injustices that riddle the American past. According to Smith, "even after constitutional recognition of the humanity of blacks, Americans created new systems of racial inequality" (554). has announced plans to visit and interview "5,000 young men who have come to the United States on tourist, student, or business visas" (F. However, Muslim Arab-Americans are not the only ones to be persecuted in this latest wave of American inegalitarianism. Whether the causes for all of the discrimination charges in American industry today are intentional or purely accidental will probably never be known, but these charges continue to alienate African-American workers and make them feel less than "equal. Under the University's policy, minority/nonwhite applicants are awarded extra "bonus points" in admissions, which they consider a means of Affirmative Action, and of insuring diversity on campus (A1). The Supreme Court stated that "the university 'did not come close' to making the case that a greater variety of races automatically equals diversity" (A1). The employees also allege that high-level jobs are not prominently posted, and in turn white supervisors just select their favorite white employees for promotion. Paul Osaki, the executive director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco explains that "Japanese-Americans know what it is to be part of the hated group in America" ("Recalling Internment.
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Acceptance Essays
