The problem of racial inequality in the United States continue to exist more than three hundred years. The issue of race is a source of grave inequality and injustice. According to de Gobineau, there are three races: white, black, and yellow. The white people hold intelligent and authority, they have power and privileges. The blacks are emotional instability and have lack of principles; they are those who were subjected to brutal enslavement. The yellows describe as hardworking and astute individuals. Very often these races subjected to segregation. For example, in some area of South Africa, blacks must to live separately from whites (Essential of Sociology). Moreover, in America, racial inequalities have demonstrated society in ways of housing opportunities, poverty, education opportunities, employment, and income.
The constant gap in homeownership rates between blacks and whites shows to the continuing role of housing as a way of racial inequality. That is one of the many areas where blacks are faring much worse than whites. Despite having the same chance at the various types of housing, African American families are nine times more likely to live in segregated neighborhoods with high poverty and lower home values. Moreover, some research shown that compared to whites, black are less likely to ever become homeowners and if they do it at older ages they have higher risk of losing their homes (Charles and Hurst 2002). According to the movie “The House We Live In”, in 1930 the Federal Government created the Federal Housing Administration that provided loan for buying houses for average Americans. Factors such as economic growth, housing shortages, and federal programs helped developers create suburbs that called Levittown. However, the owners of the houses didn’t want to sell apartments to black people. Because the color of their skin they could not be a part of the communities. The government separated suburbs by different colors, that showed rating of living. Communities that were all minority and have the lowest rating get the color red. They were ‘redlined.’ One sociologist from the movie “The House We live In” says: “The racial logic adopts the principle that an integrated neighborhood is a bad risk, is a financial risk. That an integrated neighborhood is likely to be an unstable neighborhood. Unstable socially, but therefore also unstable economically”. Furthermore, the government built a wall between new houses of white people and the poor neighborhood where lived black people. Consequently, the movie demonstrates how many benefits and privileges in housing had whites people; and how black people were discriminated.
Nowadays, differences between whites and blacks in educational area significantly decreased. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census “There are 85,2 percentage of black Americans who graduate from high school. This number is only slightly lower than the percentage of white Americans that graduate high school (91,2 percent). In 1968, the black-white high school graduation rate gap was much higher: Only 54.4 percent of black Americans graduated, in comparison to 75 percent of white Americans.” In fact, the U.S. educational system is one of the most unequal in the world, and students have different learning opportunities based on their social statuses. That can be a reason of race inequality in schools. On the other hand, there is a big gap in educational accomplishment between whites, blacks, and Latinos students that graduated colleges. Only 22.8 percent of black Americans graduated from colleges, while white American students amount 42.1 percent.
As a result of the increase in educational accomplishment, today people with black color of skin have more chances to find high paying, prestigious jobs than many years ago. Despite of that, whites are more likely to be employed than blacks or Hispanics, and whites are more likely to hold managerial or professional jobs. Some sociologists found that the gap between white employees and black employees in the United States can be as high as 30%. “The total unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics is higher than that for whites even recessionary periods (in 2012, 7.2 percent for whites versus about 13.8 percent for blacks, and 10.3 percent for Hispanics)” (Essential of Sociology). Also, people with black color of skin usually have low celery and income than white population. In 2015, average hourly wages for black and Hispanic men were $15, while white men get $21. At the same time hourly earnings of Asian and white women were $18. There were higher than get black and Hispanic women, they earned $13 per hour (Rew Research Center).
The racial inequality in the United States contribute to the huge misunderstanding between black and white populations. Despite the same chance of getting good houses, education, and jobs the blacks still be unequal with whites. Racial inequality is a huge problem that not only affect communities of color but also will have a lasting impact on our country as a whole. The documental movie “The House We Live ln” clearly demonstrates how government separated population by color of their skin.
