Ethnic Groups and Discrimination
By
Elise Johnson
University of Phoenix
The first African Americans came to American in 1619 as indentured servants. It is out of indentured servitude, that Africans were made slaves... So the majority of those of us here now, are here as decendants of slaves. African Americans did not colonize it was more like forced immigration. They were forced to come to American on slave ships. There is a common misconception that slaves were sold by other Africans. The way people understand that is all wrong... the Africans traded human cargo for European goods, yes, but did not sell random folk. In Africa when tribes battled, the tribe who lost became the servants of the tribe who won, either for life, or for a certain period of years. The Africans who were traded, were those who were already servants. It was the Europeans who made this into a slave trade, and initiated the system of chattle slavery. That does not take away from the Africans involved, but its often misunderstood that Africans created slavery.
African Americans faced prejudice, segregations, and racism. African Americans have been dealing with prejudice and racism for as long as they have been on this earth. They were not allowed to eat, sit, or even use the same bathrooms as whites. They were forced to ride in the back of public buses. Segregation came along in the 1960s when strong civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King fought for the rights of black people. African Americans were then able to go to the same places as whites.
Discrimination has also been a common denominator in the lives of African Americans. We have faced many types of discrimination such as affirmative action, dual labor, and redlining. Affirmative action was designed to give African Americans and other minority groups a fair chance in the job market. Even though affirmative action is meant to help minorities, some minority groups feel that is it insulting in a certain...