In the Diary of Systemic Injustices 1 I wrote a piece of news from New York Daily reported that some African – American woman say a worker in Harlem eatery racially profiled and falsely accused them of dining. One of the women, named Fitzgibbon, walked to a bar with her friends. As they ordered the drink, an employee asked them how they pay for the dish.
The employee shouted at Fitzgibbon and said that she was in the restaurant last week and slipped away without payment, while according to Fitzgibbon, she remembered it was the first time she came to this bar. She was confused by the hostility and felty dehumanized.
After the closely scrutiny check on the recording, the result showed that the woman who slipped away last week looked totally different from Fitzgibbon.
Not only black people in cities, but also black people in rural area are receiving unfair treatments. USDA is a kind of programs which help to improve the economic conditions and living standards of rural Americans. However even today, black farmers are still treated unfairly in this USDA program. Recently House Agriculture Committee started to hold a testimony to the unfairness received by black farmers during their interactions with U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday. What is more astonishing is that this issue has remained unresolved for more than decades. Committee’s chairman Scott said “This festering wound on the soul of American agriculture must be healed”. Some data shows that only 0.1% of black farmers has received economic help in Trump administration USDA program, which is much lower than levels of white farmers.
Despite black farmers are receiving injustice and unfairness, neither the society and government care about their rights and voices. The majority are not the victims, so even if they know the injustice to black people, they still consciously ignore the issue. That is the reason why the issue remained unresolved for decades. Since the issue is ignored, some white people nowadays still hold stereotype toward black people. Furthermore, the government even does not care about the black citizens, just because black people are not the majority comparing to white people and will not harm the government’s domination. This inequal treatment is not to one or several black people. Instead, this inequality and injustice is to black people in every city and every village in U.S. as a whole group, which illustrates the Systemic Injustice. We should not deny that the majority in U.S. society are white people, but I don’t want to see that black people are viewed as the so – called “other” group by white people. Just as Aijaz Ahmad mentioned in his article, when the conception of “otherness” is formed due to race, religion, or ethnicity etc, there will be no kindness or friendship. Instead, oppression and revolt will appear. I think everyone in this society has the responsibility to help improve the society by bonding together to eliminate the systemic injustice.
Reference: Jameson’s Rhetoric Of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory’ by Aijaz Ahmad.
Hi, I totally agree with your point. Although the BLM movement is underway, there are many people with the racism and discrimination toward the African-American people. This event is classic example of stereotype and injustice.
I think this post is very enlightening in the sense I did not know how much black farmers struggled with help from the government. The example you give of the woman being profiled in the restaurant is very hard hitting to show the point of the injustice towards the African American community in Agriculture. This really shows how injustice spans into all sections of ones life and work life.
I love your post when you try to combine the news with Aijaz Ahmad’s otherness concept. Those news are never accidental event, we need to solve the problem from the bigger picture instead of finding an excuse for the single event. Stereotyping black people and especially female is a common and serious issue which need to find out solutions to give equality to these minority
I like this showcase, I have never really thought about farming and how there can be injustices there. It saddens me to read that less than 0.1% of black farmers received help from President Trump.