RuthAnn Milbert
05/07/2010
Lynne Lerych
English 101
Essay Draft #2
Reducing Racism In American High Schools
Racism has been prevalent in the United States since the first European explorers arrived at our shores. Law reforms since that time have continuously changed almost all of society; however, “public schooling is the context in which desegregation has attained its most salient position as a national issue” (Foner and Garraty). America could reduce the amount of racial discrimination in our public high schools by encouraging everyone to pursue using one main dialect because it would make one less thing that fuels the racism in some people.
Asking people (especially adolescents) to go out of their way to try and make things easier for others that they may not even know might seem like an enormous request at first, but the simplicity of it could show positive results much faster then society has ever thought possible. Racism is generally in reaction to someone’s skin color or race so the way someone speaks isn’t usually the focus of discussions on the matter. Lets say there was a man named, Bob. Bob was a white man from Missouri and had lost his sight over the years. One day a new mailman, a black man, cheerfully greeted Bob on his porch, but was instantly shouted at to leave the property. Although Bob was blind at that point, the way in which the mailman spoke had told Bob he was black. Was this fair? Honestly, yes and no. No, it was wrong for Bob to be racist in the first place and shouldn’t assume every human that spoke as the mailman did was a person of colors. And yes, it is a pretty fair deduction Bob made due to the fact that the majority of people with that dialect were persons of color.
