The one attribute that has characterized the United Nations throughout history is the commitment to the dignity and equality of each human being, regardless of race, and its determination to combat racism and racial discrimination wherever it may exist. Therefore, I am identifying the functionalist approach.
Mankind is a social animal. Groups seem to form almost spontaneously in any social setting. Their commonness is seen from the fact that they occur in all societies, from the advanced to primitive. "Discrimination between human beings on the grounds of race, color, or ethnic origin is an offense to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as an obstacle to friendly and peaceful relations among nations, and as a fact capable of disturbing peace and security among peoples" (Ross, 121).
I believe that racism has always existed, that this was something that was deeply embedded into the American character, something that we had little opportunity to do little about. In reality, race theory and racism is a relatively recent development in world history. If one were to go back and read some of the ancients, Herodotus, the Greeks and others, what we find in the ancient world is cultural bigotry. The Greeks felt that they had the best civilization going. The Romans felt likewise. And then there was prejudice and bigotry. People fought each other based on that. But it was not on the basis of skin color. Indeed among the Greeks there were leading African people, among the Romans there were leading African persons, some of whom became Roman emperors. As Roman emperors they thought they were better than anybody else, including other black people who were non-Roman. So that the discrimination and the kind of conflicts between t
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