Whites: The Superior Race? I Think Not!

Race. What exactly is it? Race is defined as a group of people with similar inherited traits. How is this different from ones ethnicity? Ethnicity is defined by dictionary.com as the following: "Relating to or characteristic of a human group having racial, religious, linguistic and certain other traits in common A general confusion I have noticed is that many people confuse the two words race and ethnicity. Are we trying to be PC by not saying race? From my observations, I have witnessed many people ask others of a different race what their ethnicity was. Most of the responses include information about their race and not ethnicity. Are we walking on eggshells around those whose only difference is the color of their skin? Probably. This is most likely because of the discrimination that has been present in this country for a very long time.

Now that I have established not only what race and ethnicity are, but how they are different, I want to talk about racism. This is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. Racism usually associated with harmful and illegal activities such as mass murder, genocide and hate crimes (wikipedia.org/wiki/racism).

Racism in the United States is a major issue. There has been, and will continue to be discrimination against Native Americans, Blacks, Hispanics and even Whites. I believe one of the most discussed and relevant group that seems to think White people are the superior race are the White Supremacists. This includes the KKK (Klu Klux Klan), Aryan Nation, Skin Heads and the American Nazi Party just to name a few. These organizations vigorously endeavor to spread their ideology, expand their spheres of influence, and attract more adherents – some of whom have been recently implicated in some of the more serious and violent crimes against African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans and homosexuals (Adams, Roscigno 2005).

Here is a brief video on the Aryan Nation

These groups all have a lot in common, but the most recognizable is that all the members are white. They all believe that the White race is the superior race. We may not be able to change the thoughts and ideas of these group members, but we can educate our children about the dangers of discrimination in hopes to, over a manageable period of time, reduce the numbers of these groups ranks.

Adams J, Roscigno V. White Supremacists, Oppositional Culture and the World Wide Web. Social Forces [serial online]. December 2005;84(2):759-778. Available from: Academic Search Premier, Ipswich, MA. Accessed November 6, 2011.