Race the Power of an Illusion

            It is not clear that race has always been a part of us? Wrong. Ancient peoples discriminated against "others" based on their language, customs, class, and, most importantly, religion, though they did not classify people based on their physical characteristics. As it turns out, the concept of race is a relatively recent invention, dating only a few hundred years (Taylor et al., 2019). Its history and evolution are inextricably linked to the development of the United States. "The Story We Tell" traces the roots of the racial concept to the Europeans who arrived in the New World in the 1500s and to the American system of slavery - the first in history in which all slaves shared similar physical characteristics. According to historian James Horton, the enslavement of African people was opportunistic, not motivated by feelings of inferiority: "[Our forefathers] discovered what they believed to be an endless labor force supply.

            People could have been easily identified and could not blend in with the population as American Indians could. People that knew how to grow tobacco, the person who understood how to grow rice. According to historian Robin D.G. Kelley (2017), our founders faced a problem: How democracy, liberty, freedom, and liberty can be promoted; on the one hand, and a system of slavery and oppression of people who are not white on the other? Horton brings to light the story that helped harmonize that paradox: "And the way you do it is to say, 'Yeah, but you know the other way.'" Similar reasoning was used to justify the annexation of American Indian territories. Cherokee was forcefully evicted from Georgia, which was their home to the west of the Mississippi. One in every four died on the journey known as The Tears Trail. President Andrew Jackson attempted to defend the indigenous people.

Americans have tried to legitimize racial and gender stratification through various ways, for instance:

• Failure to fulfill the promise of Reconstruction- Although the Civil War's conclusion was a watershed moment in American history, enthusiasm for Reconstruction waned by the 1870s. Reconstruction's demise fostered a renaissance of white supremacist violence, discrimination in the workplace, and racial discrimination to trap African Americans in a temporary position of second-class citizenship. The systematic marginalization and repression of Black voters served as the pillar of these operations.
• The resurgence of voter suppression- In 2012, for the first time in U.S history, the national voter participation rate of Black people surpassed that of white people. Unfortunately, this was soon followed by two catastrophic U.S. Supreme Court decisions that gutted fundamental voting rights protection measures and threatened to reverse years of progress toward a vibrant democracy (Brown et al., 2021). These decisions, combined with the persistence of decades-old voter suppression and marginalization policies, jeopardize millions of Americans' fundamental right to vote.
• Exclusion of millions of African Americans from the democratic process -African Americans continue to lack equal voting rights in America, despite the Voting Rights Act's accomplishments, according to Donna Brazile. During the Jim Crow period, racial segregation was among the most effective weapons for denying Black people the right to vote. She argues that legislators' inability to eradicate racial prejudice is a significant impediment to democratic reform. The United States must do more to guarantee that African Americans have the right to vote, she adds.
• Job segregation- It affects the kind of occupations that women of color may get and their wages, and how the legal and health systems regard them. For an extended period, gender discrimination and racism were inextricably intertwined.

According to Sally Kitch (2019), a scholar and writer, white settlers in Virginia were determinants of which jobs might be taxed based on the woman's race. African women were taxed as their labor was considered labor, while the white women's work was deemed domestic and therefore nontaxable. Pay disparities between white and non-white women perpetuate that history of oppression and contribute to gender inequality.

Stories are used to cover oppression in various parts of the world.

1. Racial oppression: in the United States, there are incidents in which the police have shot African Americans in the name of defense. When further investigations are carried out, it comes out that the victims were harmless at the time the incidents occur. They cover up these stories by planting narcotics on the victims, which brands them as "dangerous drug traffickers." For example, the case of Breona Taylor, 26.
2. Religious oppression: some countries around the world associate Islam with jihadism. This has led to a lot of Muslim believers being wrongly convicted as terrorists or suspects of terrorism. For example, The Maharashtra Muslims were acquitted after 25 years of imprisonment.

            The story of Breona originates from Louisville, Kentucky, USA, and the victim was asleep during the time. The police, who were in plain clothes, came into his home where he was with her girlfriend. He was reaching for his phone to call 911, and he was shot eight times. His family was paid $12 million as compensation for the wrongful death lawsuit.

            The incident of Maharashtra Muslims happened in India where a group of Muslim families was alleged to be affiliated with a terrorist group and were imprisoned and acquitted 25 years later. These stories are meant to cover the mistakes made by governments worldwide, but they promote hatred amongst the members of society in return.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, A functioning democracy needs broad citizen involvement. Unfortunately, despite legal and legislative advances that have expanded voting rights, the United States will continue to resurrect the ghosts of a dark past via the use of new voter suppression methods targeted at people of color. It is not an option to remain alert against these attempts and to reject any vestiges of the racist past (Fletcher Hill, 2017).