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Racism Alive and
Well in America
Sawraj Singh
 President
Obama while recently addressing the annual meeting of the NAACP said
that people were being discriminated based on their race, religion,
and sexual preference in America. He said that the blacks, the
Latinos, Muslims and the gays were still being discriminated. He
said that a black man is five times more likely to be jailed as
compared to a white. He said that a black woman will not be paid
the same for doing the same work compared to a woman of different
color. The Latinos are treated as if they do not belong to this
country. The gays are not tolerated. He said that the Muslims were
looked at with suspicion.
A
well known black scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was arrested for
forcing his way to his own home because a white neighbor thought
that he was breaking into a home. Gates is the director of
Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois
institute
of
African American Research.
He said that he was arrested because he is a black man in
America. Gates has been associated with the Harvard faculty since
1991 and holds the University Professor position. He was named by
the Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans in
1997.
I
have been living in America for close to 40 years and have lived in
the big cities and in a small city and frequently visited Canada and
have been to Europe a few times. I have seen the minorities being
discriminated and have personally suffered and am still suffering
from racial discrimination. Even though the Asian Americans are
different than the other minorities because unlike the other
minorities they are better educated and earn more than the whites
yet they cannot escape from racial discrimination. Many times their
success can become the cause for their discrimination. Sometimes
they cannot understand that their success makes many whites very
jealous and they are looking for an opportunity to bring them down.
Some professions such as medicine and police have higher incidence
of racial discrimination but no profession is completely free from
this problem.
 When
I was new to America I was a resident in surgery in
Philadelphia.
We had to teach medical students from the Temple University. There
was a black student who was very bright and was from a well educated
and well placed family. He became very close to me. He told me
that the black people were subjected to very discriminatory
treatment. He said that he got pulled over by the police many times
because he had an expensive car. They would draw guns on him and
ask him to raise his hands and they were going to search him because
they suspected that he stole the car. Almost 40 years later things
have hardly changed. Even today, many studies have shown that the
police are more likely to stop the minorities and give them tickets.
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The problem of racism cannot be solved without a fundamental
change in the capitalist system itself. The crude and primitive
capitalism has to develop to a higher stage where there is less
of competition and more of cooperation, instead of narrow
individualism there is a broader sense of collective well
being. Even Europe and Canada have room for refining their
capitalist systems but America needs the most to learn the
virtues of sharing and coexistence. |
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About 25 years ago, I was doing fellowship in vascular surgery in
the New York area. I used to spend a lot of time in the library.
The librarian, an elderly Jewish lady became a very good friend of
mine. When I told her that I was going to practice in Ellensburg, a
small city, then she said that I was making a big mistake. She said
that in small cities minorities are subjected to the worst
discrimination. The wisdom in her words became apparent as soon as
we moved here but I decided to struggle against racial
discrimination. I and my family have suffered a lot but it has
helped me to deeply understand the issues of racialism and
discrimination.
Racial discrimination is there in all western capitalist countries
but in America racial discrimination is mixed more with the economic
competition. American capitalism is more primitive and crude as
compared to the European and the Canadian capitalisms. In the
earlier stages of capitalism there is a strong instinct to finish
your competitions. As capitalism becomes more mature then there
emerges a tendency towards a social welfare state.
America is far behind Western Europe in the terms of maturity of
capitalism. In the mid nineteenth century,
Europe
was experiencing the utilitarian movement and the Laissez Faire
movement, both of these intended to make capitalism more
humanitarian. At that time
America was seeing breeding and auctioning black slaves as if they
were animals. Similarly, the Native Americans were hunted and
massacred like herds of animals. This
 was
done to make room for the white settlers. How do we explain the
difference between the American and the Canadian capitalisms? My
explanation is that the difference is because of the historical
evolution of the two systems is different.
America
had to fight the British and was isolated from
Europe.
Therefore, America was deprived of the evolution of primitive
capitalism to a more refined capitalism with a human face. Canada
on the other hand never severed its relations with
Europe,
until 1982, it remained a British dominion. Therefore, Canadian
capitalism developed more similar to the Europeans model.
One other thing which made matters more complicated is that America
has more natural resources than
Europe.
America quickly became richer than
Europe.
This led to an illusion that the American capitalism was more
evolved and efficient then the European model. Nothing can be
farther from the truth. American richness is due to the abundance
of natural resources rather than the efficiency of the American
capitalist model.
Today the inefficiency and inferiority of the American capitalism as
compared to the European and Canadian models is becoming clearer
every day. When we compare the quality of life in America to the
quality of life in
Canada
and Europe this reality becomes very clear. For example, all the
big Canadian cities make to the top 10 cities in the World, based on
the quality of life, but none of the American cities even made to
the first 40. Whether it is healthcare, education or crime,
America
is far behind. For example, violent crime is America is about seven
times more than
Canada
and about 70 times more than
Europe.
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Some professions such as medicine and police have higher
incidence of racial discrimination but no profession is
completely free from this problem. |
The top 10% of the population in
America
owns much more assets than their counterparts in
Europe
or Canada but the quality of life for the bottom 90% is much better
in those countries. The working class in America has to work longer
hours and has fewer benefits than the working class in the European
countries. Even the resident doctors in America have to work much
longer hours, 80 hours a week compared to the 45 – 50 hours a week
in Europe. There is no doubt that America is a more polarized
society than
Europe
.There is much bigger gap between the rich and the poor. Generally,
polarization leads to a lower quality of life.
The problem of racism cannot be solved without a fundamental change
in the capitalist system itself. The crude and primitive capitalism
has to develop to a higher stage where there is less of competition
and more of cooperation, instead of narrow individualism there is a
broader sense of collective well being. Even Europe and Canada have
room for refining their capitalist systems but America needs the
most to learn the virtues of sharing and coexistence. Racism is the
legacy of the consumerist capitalism which has treated people as
commodities. We need a system which is based upon the principles of
universal concern and universal well being. Guru Granth Sahib has
those principles. Today we need pooling of all wisdom to solve the
problems and meet the challenges faced by the
 mankind.
The western capitalism created the problem of racism. The eastern
spirituality may help to solve this problem. Guru Granth Sahib is
the essence of the eastern spirituality.
The author is Chairman Washington State Network for Human Rights and
also of
Central Washington
Coalition for Social Justice.
29
July 2009
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