Racial Profiling College Essays Samples For Students

Introduction

Racial profiling has been a national problem for America for a long time despite claims that the nation has passed that era. Racial profiling occurs every day everywhere across America when people of color are targeted by private security and law enforcement for frightening detentions, searches and interrogations without evidence that they are criminals. The detentions, searches and interrogations are usually based on perceived race, ethnicity, national origin or religion. Race and location are dominant characteristics that authorities look at when engaging in this type of profiling. This paper will give an understanding of racial profiling, the legislations and case laws ...

Abstract

Racial and ethnic stereotyping often links individuals and certain groups of persons from the public with suspicious activities most of which are criminal related. Hence, there will be profiling of individuals linked to such activities. For example, after the September 11 terrorist bombing in the United States, there was profiling of virtually all the Arabs and Muslims living, working, and immigrating to America. This is because the suspects were of Muslim and Arab origin (Bjerk; American Civil Liberties Union).
Persons and institutions charged with the responsibility of ensuring public security and safety mostly do racial profiling. However, as ( ...

Introduction

Racial profiling is the targeting of a particular race for a particular crime. The practice was rampant from the time before the Civil War. African-Americans frisked by police from the street irrespective of their status (free or enslaved) were a common practice. The punishments for criminals differed as per color of the skin until the end of the crack cocaine period. The practice is unwelcome with minority communities since it often results in unfair treatment. An African-American or Hispanic origin civilian has higher chances of police questioning him compared to a Caucasian. In addition, the post-9/11 era comprises of ...

Introduction

Issues of racism have shaped the American history for quite a long time. For a considerable period now, African-Americans and other minority groups have been the recipients of harsh and discriminatory treatment. Black Americans and colored people have experienced racial profiling in several instances or areas including enforcement of law. In fact, despite some legislations discriminating racial profiling or creating reasoned frameworks for a balanced community, racism still has a space in the current society. Racial profiling refers to the usage of a person’s race or culture by law enforcement workforces as a fundamental factor in determining whether to engross in application. Racial profiling ...

Project outline

Introduction
Racial profiling a way of targeting a specific race for a particular crime. It is worth noting that racial profiling was a rampant practice during the civil war. African-Americans are the main people who went through racial profiling. Also, the punishment of criminals differed based on racial segregation. The trend was still experienced during the crack cocaine. After the 9/11 terror attacks, racial profiling issues began to affect the Muslim and Arab communities. In the general perspective, racial profiling is rampant among law enforcement agencies.

Problem identification

Racial profiling continues to be a dynamic issue in the United States. In ...

Introduction

The question of racial discrimination in the legal system of the United States is a sought after topic despite limited evidence to support its existence at present. Although the nation once participated in discriminatory practices in the past, the majority of the activities ceased during the last few decades. Despite sweeping developments in recent years, the news never grows old while reporting a possible aberration. This research paper examines the evidence of data available in the books against the media reports which claim the rampant existence of racial discrimination. Each section in this research paper will raise question regarding ...

Criminal Law is a branch of specialization under the head of the Law school or university that deals with crimes and proscribes in the defense of whatever that is threatening, harmful or is a danger to the society in matters of yielding damage to property, jeopardize health and security and tampers the moral and ethical well-being of the people (Norman, 78). The criminal behavior is enthusiastically dealt with by the Public international law.
The conducts may be in such a way that they extremely disturb the ways of living of the human. People may consider this as shallow, but this is a ...

Racial profiling is one of the problems in the United States. It is worth noting that criminal justice system has been accused of racial profiling criminals. Some of the institutions that are believed to focus on racial profiling include courts, police and correctional facilities. People who allege to have been profiled on race are the Hispanics and blacks. The trend on racial profiling in courts is on the decline. The Supreme Court in U.S held that racial profiling is against the constitution (Glover, 2009). Statistics show that racial profiling in courts affects the blacks. Based on the statistics it ...

Introduction

People around the globe are distinguishable because of tradition, culture, appearance, and color. Hundreds or thousands of years ago, people are divided with these distinguishes. However, exploration leads to discovery and many people from different parts of the world started to travel from one place to another. This then leads to mixing from one race to another but people often have different distinctions that gave them difficulties in mingling to another group. Pilgrimage made a nation so powerful like the United States of America but it also gave grief and pain to those subjects of slavery back then. Amendments after ...

In order to complete the Portfolio Project, I have chosen the topic “Racial Profiling by the Police: What are the Critics Missing” for my research. Racial profiling, like many aspects of criminal justice has its opponents and supports. Opponents of racial profiling, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the define racial profiling as the “discriminatory practice of law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race or ethnicity” (ACLU, 2015). Racial profiling critics argue that police, rather than basing their actions on an analysis of the facts and circumstances ...

Dear Professor [insert name],

On Project 1
Before I stepped in your class, I had usually perceived writing as a difficult task that takes a lot of time. This short and yet a powerful statement, too, had resonated in the minds of most of my classmates that I started to study this course together. However, it has just been a matter of ten weeks, and my writing skills have improved very drastically, courtesy of this class. Thanks to a lot of time I dedicated in writing, revising, seeking professor’s reviews and polishing my works to come up with more superior contents about the given topic. My ...

Racial profiling and discrimination are is an increasing problem in the urban communities. Many people in the world are a victim of the racial stereotypes and racism because people give much importance to thinking about others (Anderson & Taylor, 2007). Considering an example that in North America and Pakistan are still impacted by the racial stereotype and racism. For example, the black males are not considered as good, and they are regarded as dangerous individuals as they are involved in crimes. The black males are also considered as aggressive (Fineman & Thomson, 2013). A Muslim male having beard is considered as terrorist ...

Racism is not an uncommon problem for the United States. Due to the history of the country, and the fact that it was built, partially, by the slave labor, it’s hard to escape from the past. Even though nowadays minorities have it better and there is no more slavery nor segregation, a heavy prejudice against them is still here. Apart from blunt, straightforward racism, it also can take more subtle forms. Those forms in question are racial profiling and affirmative action. Though many people are proponents of one and opponents of second (or vice versa), they’re not ...

The recent unrest in Ferguson Missouri has brought a number of controversial issues into the national spotlight. One day after a police shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, civil protests erupted, curfews were established and militarized riot squads secured the streets to maintain order. The small town saw peaceful protests quickly deteriorate into riots, violence and looting. The issue raised a number of important topics involving effective community policing, including the racial profile of a police department. Attorney General Eric Holder called for more racial diversity, promising that police departments will be more racially representative of their communities to encourage improved police-community ...

Complement and conflict of corporate social responsibilities

Application of corporate social responsibility in Airbnb will generate benefits and also attract conflicts on profit maximization goal in several ways. Firstly, application of educational and operational measures in efforts to limit product choice based on race and color will maximize profits. Potentially, this will increase demand for Airbnb accommodation services by black clients. Additionally, holding specific meetings to sort out reported cases on racial profiling will improve client satisfaction and cut the possibility of lawsuits prompted by reporting clients. Besides, installation of in-house data analytics applications will be essential in capturing cases on racial profiling. Consequently, the attractiveness ...

Over the years, there has been a controversy of racial status, and racial criminal involvement. Racism has been a huge factor that related to inequality, and victimization. The country has continued to be unbiased when crimes occur, and as to what race was involved in the crimes. The stereotyping of the racial class has been an issue for many decades. The intensity of race issues in the country has been on the rise due to media coverage of racial crimes. The judgment of society is solely based on the media and how it portrays the new coverage.
The racial ...

Junot Diaz’s article serves up a criticism of the MFA creative writing program, and the perceived racism in this program. Diaz is an alumnus of the MFA program under Cornell University. However, he takes a swipe at the program, claiming that it is racially biased and “too white”. Despite having attended the program almost two decades earlier, Diaz posits that nothing has changed. He argues that the same absence of diversity in the faculty that was a feature of his days is replicated in the present day. Diaz cites examples of the racism and racial profiling evident in the present day ...

Police in America are charged by the state with the duty to enforce the law, protect both people and property, and preserve civil order. To accomplish these goals, one of the things that distinguish police from other groups involved in the preservation of order is that police are allowed to make arrests and police are often allowed to use force. This ability to use force has sometimes been troublesome when examining the interaction between police and different ethnic groups in America.
The interaction of police forces with different groups of people throughout the history of this country and ...

Introduction

Crime is essentially a part of the social spectrum in several urban conglomerations, as in the case of the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA). Cities within the SFBA treat crime as a major deterrent to their goals to instill social order, given the need to preserve the safety of their urban populations to stabilize their economic activities, which are focused mostly on services and commerce. However, recent trends show that crime in the SFBA remains a critical problem and are aggravated with the social effects of the great recession of 2008 and racial profiling, among many others. This essay seeks to expound ...

Racial in our crime and punishment system had been a huge concern for many years. The crime and punishment system are geared toward racism. There are reasons that the existence of racism is a concern for punishment and crime. In the United States, there are more black people incarcerated in the prison system than there are white people. It is a proven fact that the legal action against drugs is focused merely on African American individuals. This is due to the policy that concerns the drug war, epidemic in the country. The policy states that it is better to ...

Racial profiling is one of those terms that we hear, and we automatically think about a time that has passed. There are reflexive visions of black men being slammed around by groups of angry white police officers. It is quite the cliché, but that is one of those memories that repeatedly come to mind. We feel like that type of behavior happened in a period when race was a far more polarizing issue. Contrarily, racial profiling is still very much alive and well. Minorities and people of all sorts are profiled on a daily basis. Even in the news, ...

‘Instructor’s Name’

‘Subject’
Chinese American Identity
In American society, Asian immigrants are viewed as the ‘model minority’ and are placed under a homogeneous group labeled as hard working and timid, despite the various cultural differences that exist among them. Race and ethnicity is a complicated subject in the US and the various stereotypes associated with minority groups create many cultural and ethnic tensions. The stereotypes directed towards ethnic minorities and the resultant racial profiling, poses unique challenges to the identity of Chinese Americans, and there is a need for multiracial coalitions to combat the evils of racial profiling.
The United States ...

Following APA Guidelines

Academic Affiliation:
On the unfortunate morning that the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks took, place people around the globe have forced the population to reassess security measures. Once thought to be one of the safest countries in the world, the United States revealed itself to have several breaches when the towers fell. The new, restrictive guidelines to help keep citizens safe began slowly. The airport began keeping a firmer, more watchful eye on boarding passengers, as well as their luggage while the government began to take more notice of the nation’s borders. Slowly people began to feel safe ...

1. People claim that the war on drug has delivered significantly unequal results across racial groups, demonstrated through racial segregation by law implementation and unbalanced drug war hopelessness endured by groups of color. In spite of the fact that the percentage of drug use as well as selling are the same across racial groups, ethnic minorities are much more prone to be ceased, looked, indicted, sentenced, captured, and imprisoned for medication law infringement compared to whites. Greater arrest and imprisonment rates for Latinos and African Americans do not suggest expanded pervasiveness of drug use in these groups. The mass ...

Racial profiling is a challenge that has troubled many nations for a very long time, and the United States of America being one of the most affected. The problem is visible by the private security and law enforcement agent’s targeting people of color for humiliation, interrogations, detentions, and search with no evidence of any criminal act. All the discriminations are because of national origin, race, religion, or ethnicity. The act of racial profiling is illegal and violates the Constitution of USA since all people are promised same treatment and protection, and this has made the law enforcers and ...

Black Lives Matter

I find social activism as a modern and more effective way to create awareness about an issue or initiate a protest against one. This is because social activism promotes mass movements in societies in which it is initiated, and as such, important matters that call for everyone’s attention can be addressed with urgency and the level of importance that can bring about social change. The social activism movement: ‘Black Lives Matter’, initially originated in the U.S. and later on replicated in the U.K., is one that I am particularly interested in. Spearheaded by the African-American community, the movement ...

Andrea Wright

Jessica Dagoglou
RACE AND POLICE
Specific Purpose: To make my audience aware of the close relationship between racism against African Americans and the police today.
Thesis Statement: It is my wish to share what I have found out about racism in the police department, and the different policies and standards found to be used when interacting with African American citizens in comparison with other races.

INTRODUCTION

Attention material: Minority citizens such as the African Americans are constantly, arrested, searched, and policed (Correll et al., 2007). This is done at a higher rate than other citizens such as the whites. The ...

Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling is a problem that plagues the United States in many facets of life including the schools, police, corrections facilities and many other areas of life and culture. It is a system of judgment that is difficult to break especially because of the skin color barrier.
Police are quick to be accused of racial profiling. Law enforcement officers have comes through an education system that targeted the bad black boys with increased punishments, teachers quick to single out them for the problem kids, and a culture of prejudice. This is called a system of implicit bias . It is ...

The newly appointed chief of the police department proclaims that she will initiate a new policing approach in order to earn the trust of the community, which was diminished due to the flaws of the former chief officer. The new chief wants to implicate to everyone that the new system or policing initiative will not tolerate racial profiling and will be of help to the community whenever possible. Since the former chief of the department could not appropriately address and resolve some allegations regarding racial profiling, the new chief wants to be able to overcome this issue by stating new ...

The world is made up of different people representing different races and ethnic groups around the world. It is important to note that that these social profiling of different people were constructed by the dominant group in a given society. It is important to note that one’s race is determined by their physical features such as one’s phenotype, type of hair, among other things. On the other hand, one’s ethnicity is determined by their culture, language, beliefs and traditional roots. Both the racial and ethnic groups have been formed and integrated into our society by the dominant ...

Racism against Arab Americans: Key Concerns for law enforcement to overcome racism and promote better relationship with Arab Americans and other Middle Eastern Groups
1.0 Introduction
Like Hispanics, Arabs are a linguistic and cultural community that share a common primary language (Arabic) and historical and cultural background of the Arab world, and not a religious or racial group. Never the less, Arabs have been “racialized” and discriminated on the basis of their perceived religion (Islam). A majority of the Arabs is Muslim but the largest Muslim countries, e.g. Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Iran and Nigeria, are not found in ...

Thesis

Racism is still a very big problem in the world and America in particular. The gains of the civil rights of the 1960's have been washed away, partly, by the rise of the ‘political correctness' era that designed things to be said in a certain way, and, a pluralistic ignorance that came out as an offshoot of political correctness, where, people speak about racism in acceptable terms while believing in the opposite to avoid appearing insensitive and racist. Just as racism was rampant in America in 1930’s as brought out in the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird, ...

The issue of racial profiling is very dominant in the law enforcement profiling. It is one of the common challenges that affect not only the American society but also other societies in the world. A perfect example of racial profiling is when police officers inappropriately use the criterion of race when making professional decisions. It also refers to a common practice of summoning an individual based essentially on their race at the expense of their character. However, racial profiling is not the only law enforcement profiling that has been recorded. In the United States, for instance, the drug-courier profile has ...

Not everyone will agree with me that social profiling exists in our society today. As a nation we have walked a long hard road on matters racism and many consider it a thing of the past. But that is not true considering some of the happenings we see in our society with regard to a rough and unfair treatment that black drivers receive on the highways. When looking at this issue of “driving while black” one cannot afford to assume that black men are discriminated against because of the way in which they are treated. It is a common happening for black males of ...

The Stop Question and Frisk program has been the subject of major scrutiny over the past few years in New York City. The program, although quite vague, is a policy that allows New York City police officers to stop, question and frisk any pedestrian they deem questionable. However, this program has fueled anger in minority groups over racial profiling, as the bulk of pedestrians who have been stopped were of the African American or Latin communities. The newly elected Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio has decided to reform the policy in response to many reports of civil rights ...

Abstract

The paper shall introduce the issue of racialism in the world as well as defining racialism. In the paper, various challenges that stakeholders who are campaigning against racialism and especially in the United States among the blacks and the whites shall be discussed. Among the reasons discussed in the paper are failures of the blacks to do away with the history of slavery, the blacks believing on the notion of police brutality and profiling, the black referring to themselves as niggers as well dressing in a suspicious way. In addition, white failure to accept the culture and practises of the ...

In today’s society racial profiling is not as bad as it used to be in the 19th and 20th century. When looking at the whole issue of “Driving While Black” it becomes apparent that it has become difficult for an average black male to be on the road without being labeled. Everything that seems to be done the wrong way is always blamed on young African males until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are not involved. Being black is the influence on how far policemen can go into making investigations and inquiries.

According to authors ...

Yeshivah of Flatbush High School

Fall 2013
Do you agree with the recent immigration laws in Arizona and California?
Arizona enacted two Laws, SB 1070 and HB 2162, in April 2010 to address immigration in the state. These laws included new state requirements, the crimes and penalization related to immigration laws enforcement and the laws were to become effective on the 29th of July 2010. Before the legislations could be effected, the department of justice in the United States filed a lawsuit asking for injunction against these laws on the grounds that they were unconstitutional. This lawsuit gave a signal that the laws were ...

ABSTRACT

No other country in the Western world has as high a level of inequality of wealth and incomes compared to the United States and none offers less opportunity for intergenerational mobility. Just the opposite, mobility has been decreasing greatly over the last thirty years while inequality has increased, and young people earn less than their parent’s generation. All of this is a result of conservative tax, budget and economic policies since the 1970s that have left the U.S. as more of a class-stratified society than Great Britain. Children born into poverty are very likely to remain in poverty all their lives ...

Racism is not really related to genetics or biology but rather has always been culturally, politically and economically constructed, particularly during the era of slavery and the European colonization of Asia, Africa and the Americas. It provided an ideological justification from colonization on the grounds that white, Western civilization was supposedly superior to its victims. In The Racial Contract (1997) Charles W. Mills asserted that racism and white supremacy have been the real basis for the social, political and economic that has existed in the world over the last 400 years rather than the ideas of John Locke, Immanuel ...

In resonating with the residents of the Tenderloin in San Francisco, my personalities have over the years been influenced by my unique environment similar to the Tenderloin thus shaping me into an individual with diverse and affluent values and beliefs. I come from China, Asia and this makes my environment unique similar to that of the Tenderloin. The residents of the Tenderloin are known to have a unique background with many racial groups and people of different walks of life. As such, factors such as race, gender and poverty are issues common to the region with the region also ...

Introduction

Police officers and their actions fall under the scrutiny of the society and the Constitutional Amendments that protect their rights. Although state legislatures adopt different approaches to arrest criminal behavior, the police departments across the nation are subjective to Federal laws in case of violations. The most common complaints against the police in recent years include excessive force, violation of civil rights, unbecoming of an officer, and deliberate indifference. Police officers enjoy limited immunity and cannot be accountable individually. However, the department as a whole will face the damages. In the political climate today with shrinking police budgets, lawsuits ...

The film Do the Right Thing was written, directed, and produced by Spike Lee in 1989. Set in Brooklyn neighborhood, the film depicts the racial tensions that existed in America at the time. The film brings to the fore the widespread discrimination and social injustices against Blacks through the effective use of loud, earnest, and angry sounds. Lee's careful choice of the film's characters helps bring out the themes in the film such as racism, violence, and peace. The opening scene of a female dancing aggressively to “Fight the power” in a boxing outfit sets the tone of the ...

Introduction

The Trayvon Martin shooting of 2012, in which George Zimmerman shot a 17-year-old black youth whom he believed was acting in a threatening manner. The controversy surrounding the murder and its subsequent trial brought up intriguing and complicated discussions surrounding Florida’s Stand Your Ground laws, which stated Zimmerman had the right to defend himself with deadly force if he felt threatened. Stand Your Ground laws have encountered a great deal of discussion in recent years due to this case and many others, in which the issue of being able to defend yourself with lethal force is taken into ...

This paper explores the problem of police brutality with a view to fostering positive change that includes the following general goals: creation of awareness on the chronic problem of police brutality; reduction of police violence-related deaths; improvement of the cooperation between civilians and police; reduction of racially-driven police brutality. These objectives are emerge from the need to end police brutality (The United States Department of Justice, 2015; Hill, 2015) However, the goals of this paper are informed by the fact that the first step in solving the problem of police brutality is to underline the existence of the problem ...

Introduction.2

Discussion.. 3

Cons of Requiring Body Cameras 3-4

Pros of Requiring Body Cameras 4-5
Institutional Police Abuse and Corruption. 5-6
Racial Elements & Police 6-7
Technology & Police.. 7-8

Nothing to Hide 8

Walter Scott & Officer Michael E. Slager 8-9
Police Resolving Problems 9-10
Making Changes 11-12
Conclusion. 12-13

References 14-15

INTRODUCTION
Law and order is an issue that all civilizations past, present and future have faced. All people try to find the most ethical, moral, philosophical and effective means to establish laws, enforce those laws, punish the guilty and provide justice for the victims of crimes committed. For generations law enforcement officers have been the bridge between the public and the American ...

Use of force is sometimes required when dealing with an aggressive or resistant individual. Yet, force may become excessive. Excessive force refers to coercion that goes beyond the reasonable response in a particular situation (Kinnaird, 2003). Excessive use of force violates constitutional rights. A less discussed area is the ethical aspect of excessive use of force.
Excessive use of force involves different types of ethical violations. First, excessive use of force involves misconduct. Excessive use of force constitutes abuse of authority and discretion that negate the sworn duty of police officers to protect and serve. In dealing with complaints ...

Statistics tell us about the state of policing in the country. A report released by the FBI in 2014 shows that at least 51 officers were killed while doing their jobs (Sanburn, 2015). That was an 89 percent rise from the previous year. The report also showed that in 2013, 461 suspects were killed by police officers, which was more than the 2010 number of 397 (Sanburn, 2015). A survey among the minority groups shows that people are less confident of law enforcement. A number of efforts have been made so far to come up with solutions for these ...

Section 1 (524-7)

Interpretive frame is when an individual or a particular party uses rhetorical responses to a particular situation in a given society. This text examines the hurricane Katrina and some of the things people speculated based on the people living in New Orleans based on their racial profile. One of the things that the text describes is how Hurricane Katrina exposed the racism embedded in the country. According to Harris and Carbado, there were two controversial photos of Katrina victims wading through the water carrying bags that flowed in the media. Most of the media captions stereotyped an African American who was pictured ...

Chapter 5 of The New Jim Crow

Chapter 5 of “The New Jim Crow” is the eponymous title of the book The New Jim Crow. It begins with the author Michelle Alexander describing an extraordinary Sunday in which the first black Democratic nominee for president took to the podium of the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. The author see the system of mas incarceration as having three different components: Roundup, formal control and invisible punishment. Each of these combines are what create a “New Jim Crow” laws in America, a nod to historic laws that were put on the books to harm black.
The reason that ...

Thematic issue reflection paper: racism and racial inequality

Introduction
The thematic issues for this research paper are racism and racial inequality. The reason for this is because both themes have always been controversial issues in the world. These themes are what have shaped the United States of America to be what it is now. In order to see the controversies brought on by the two themes, it is very important for one to be able to define each theme. Racism is defined as the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that favour one group of people who are perceived to be superior over another that is perceived to ...

The Criminal Justice Professionals often than not find themselves in situations that present dilemmas as they go about with their law enforcement duties. An example of such a scenario is the arbitrary stopping and frisking of individuals by Police in their efforts to apprehend criminals and prevent crime. The rights of the community in such a scenario are violated and coincide with law enforcement duties. It is prudent to understand that achieving this balance between the duty and right poses a great challenge for any law enforcer (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2014). In recent times, there has been a growing perception that the Police ...

Part one

Question one
Achieved characteristics are the traits that an individual achieves because of personal effort following his or her ability (Plummer, 2010). Outstanding examples are careers, marital status, and the health status
Ascribed characteristics are the traits that the society gives to its members without them having to work for them (Plummer, 2010). For example, curfew violation, alcohol possession, as well as truancy.

Question two

People have a different amount of material and nonmaterial resources, and they will always have differing views on different issues (Plummer, 2010).
Race and gender are proper definitions of the differences that exist between ...

Introduction

The Civil Right Movement refers to the revolutionary and reformatory movement in the US purported to remove racial discrimination against black Americans and instituting suffrage in the South. The Civil Right Movement is a defining chapter in the US history because it earned the black Americans the equal right of citizenship as whites. It also brought about a significant change in the social and economic structure of the US, contributing to the passing of Civil Right Bill in 1964 and the Voting Right a year after. This movement had witnessed the emergence of a great many leaders still worshipped for their fortitude and ...

a. Definitions: Define the terms sociology and sociological imagination. Explain the value of using sociological imagination to understand social life (100 word minimum).

According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination is a method or tool that allows researchers to link the individual, personal and biographical level with broader currents of history, vulture and economics. No abstract or empirical individuals even existed outside of this social and historical context. He was challenging the structural-functionalist sociology of Talcott Parsons, which took the dominant values of society as a given and required all ‘normal’ individuals to be socialized and integrated into them (Mills ...

The concept of civil liberties granting individual rights has historically been a push-pull between majority and minority rights. Until the late 1800’s the United States was a majority Christian nation. Setting aside time for Christian prayers and Christian holidays seemed natural and appropriate to everyone whether an activity was stopped during school, a public meeting or in church.
When immigrants from Europe with varied backgrounds and beliefs started arriving late in the 1800’s the playing field started shifting. Immigrants were filling jobs which were being created during Industrialization. They were settling into the cities causing a sharp rise in urbanization.
...