Analyze a Sociological Issue

Many Individuals throughout the United States believe there is an over abundance of opportunities designed to benefit minorities, but not enough to help the American born. By offering opportunities, such as educational, employment, healthcare, and financial assistance, many individuals throughout the United States believe American born citizens will become more deprived. In return, any chance of success, escape from financial debt, or the possibility to own a home-business, will continue to move further from one's grasp, and become a thing of the past.

Minorities, on the other hand, disagree with this accusation and say the vast majority of opportunities being offered are unsatisfactory and seem not only to exist as a means to satisfy the conscious minds of certain political figures but were constructed to keep a vast majority of the minority population quiet and content. Throughout this paper we will take a closer look at the opportunities offered, the inequality in each, and the hardships minorities are forced to endure on a daily basis.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau News, the United States population in 2006 exceeded 300 million, with the minority population reaching an all time high of 100.7 million. With so many minorities now residing within the U.S. borders, many of which are unemployed living on state, or federal assistance, and have little to no healthcare, political figures and professionals believe the economy will continue to decline and show signs of hardship. These same political figures and professional believe if a large portion of these minorities are provided with opportunities that can improve the lifestyles of minority individuals and families, the economy will quickly improve as a result of alleviating the need for tax dollars to be spent on providing assistance to these individuals (U.S. Census Bureau News, 2007).

One leading concern that has many underlying issues is education for minorities here in the United States. Professionals, political figures, and many organizations are concerned with: the lack of minority history taught throughout our public school systems, public school segregation, the shortage of bilingual teachers, and the low number of minority college students-graduates. With historical cases, such as Brown v. Board of Education 1954, and Briggs v. Elliot 1954, segregation in the public and college level school systems were found to be a violation of one's Civil Rights (Brown Foundation, 2004).

But today throughout many large cities in the U.S. segregation still occurs on a wide scale. Studies taking showed minorities that live near or in low income areas are segregated in public school systems away from White children, or are forced to attend a lower accredited college due to one's financial situation. Furthermore, research has proven minority school systems are not provided with the necessary resources White school systems are provided with, such as updated books, library resources, computers, and special education programs that can help correct illiteracy, comprehension and other learning disabilities. These resources are crucial tools needed for one to become: productive in society, reduce anxiety, depression, and gain entry in college.

Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities believe the public school systems avoid teaching cultural diversity as a result of two issues: the lack of local, state, and federal funding necessary to obtain required resources that would allow cultural diversity to be taught, and our government's academic requirement to focus primarily on teaching American history. By exclusively concentrating on American History many argue minority children are being forced to further assimilate into American culture and are becoming Americanized as a result. The effect of Americanizing minority individuals shows clear signs of inequality and is extremely harmful to other cultures as Americanization removes important cultural values and traditions that have been instilled and practiced in minority families for hundreds if not thousands of years.

According to Flores, Keehn, and Perez, there is a lack of bilingual teachers in our public school systems. In return, the minority population is going to suffer even more so academically. These professionals believe children have a great deal of trouble reading and comprehending class assignments writing in English; therefore, poor grades and test scores continue to increase, all leading to anxiety, depression, and possible suicide (Flores, Keehn, & Perez, 2002). These issues are thought to be a leading factor for the increase in our nation's overall minority high school drop-out rate. Barry Grey, a writer and WSWS international editorial board member for the World Socialist Website, found for the years 2003-2004, 48% of all high school students in the United States residing in our country's 50 largest cities dropped out of school. These large U.S. cities, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Atlanta are known to house an abundance of minorities with lifestyles at, or below poverty levels (Grey, 2008).

In addition, those minorities that have achieved college degrees in the undergraduate level have done so at a community college, where minorities complain the courses offered are simplified to meet certain minority standards. This set standard has made it exceedingly difficult for most minorities to become marketable when compared to the White individuals that have graduated from a state, or college University. Statistics conducted in 2006 by an organization called "Just Stats" displayed those minorities who received associates degrees, such as African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Asian American, and multiracial individuals made up a mere 13.9%, compared to that of White Americans that accounted for 86.1%. Moreover, minorities that received bachelor's degrees, than continued on to earn a master's, and doctorates degree in the same year, averaged 13.1% compared to an unprecedented average of 86.9% for Whites. These uneven numbers have remained steady over the last few decades and clearly demonstrate academic inequality, and an understanding for why so many minorities are living unsuccessful-unproductive lifestyles (Just the Stats, 2008).

Let us take a look at the employment opportunities available for minorities in the United States,as a result of minorities unable to receive an education. Most of these jobs are low-paying, extremely labor intensive and are under the table with no retirement and healthcare benefits. Furthermore, minorities insist these jobs exist as a result of Americans not wanting to perform the required job duties for the hourly rate offered, or are left with no other employment options due to lack of education and training. Minorities are known for their expertise in agricultural work, janitorial-maintenance work, where one cleans hospitals, schools, commercial buildings, and private homes; and plastic factory work. In 2003 CNN conducted research that displayed a vast majority of minorities are employed in the fast food industry, like McDonald's where minorities make up 52.6% of its employees. These jobs have caused minorities to be looked upon as uneducated-ignorant individuals by the White community (CNN International, 2003).

Minorities that are fortunate to have received an education that earned them a decent paying career, found themselves stuck in what is known as the "glass ceiling affect", unable to climb up the corporate ladder (Kaufman-Rosen, 1995). In addition the pay difference for these minority women and men, including White women are unparalleled to that of White men. A further study taking by the "Equal Opportunities Commission" back in 2006, found that White men hold more CEO, middle and upper management, and top executive positions throughout the United States than all other minority groups combined. The research continued to show those minorities that had equal and higher educational and training experience than that of their White counterpart, were still receiving disproportionate salaries and frivolous positions (Platt, 2006).

Substance abuse is much higher for most minorities in comparison to Whites. The average life expectancy for White males is 74 years and White women 78 years. The average life expectancy for Native American males is 45 years. The inability to receive healthcare has caused many Native Americans to die from illnesses that can be treated, or controlled with the use of basic medication, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, diabetes, liver disease, and hepatitis. In additions Native Americans are known for their high alcohol consumption which is believed to result from anxiety and depression caused by the lack of available employment, low education, and overall poor quality lifestyles.

Moreover, African Americans find themselves in the same situation as Native Americans, living on average 5.3 years less than Whites. Research from the years 1983 to 2003 explained the reasons for the life expectancy gap between the two races. White Americans on average are provided with better healthcare due to employment benefits; therefore, Whites stand a better chance of being diagnosed early for health issues by medical professionals which in return allows for preventative and corrective treatment. African Americans, on the other hand, are provided with inadequate healthcare to no healthcare, are victims of substance abuse, alcoholism, encounter homicide amongst each other and are more susceptible of getting heart disease, diabetes, and liver disease (Colby, 2007).

Hispanics suffer from much of the same negativity throughout the course of their lives as Native American and African Americans. Hispanics as mentioned are forced to work hard laborious jobs, job of which provide are under the table, low paying, and offer no health benefits. This has placed the Hispanic community to be subjected to the health issues, and daily anxieties (National Office of Minority Health, 2003).

Discrimination and inequality against our minority population within our Criminal Justice system has prevailed numerous times over. More minorities are incarcerated, receive longer prison sentences, and Capital punishment for serious crimes committed than Whites who generally receive some form of intermediate sanction where community corrections is implemented. From 1983 to 2001, researchers compared Whites and African Americans with similar crimes being committed. The research found African American males were three times more likely to commit a serious act of violence over Whites. Once again poverty, dysfunctional households, education, and the lack of available employment opportunities may be the cause for such street violence.

In addition our countries minorities organized gang activity has increased dramatically. The majority of all gangs in the United States are minority operated. The Latin Kings, Mexican Mafia, Brown side locos, with the exception of White supremacist groups are making law officials extremely uncomfortable. Street gangs have forced law enforcement officials to use unfair, unjust, biased methods to identify an individual as a criminal over the law abiding citizen. More minorities find themselves followed, racially profiled, and questioned while walking down the street without reason. The vast majority of the time these individuals physical appearance and mannerisms are the prime factors for such unethical police behavior.

While comparing minorities in the United States to that of White Americans, substantial enormities are found to be suffering from some form of discrepancy. These inequalities taking for granted by the vast majority of White Caucasians could change the lives of millions. Unfortunately, enough there is an underlying issue that needs immediate attention. I believe until a strategy is designed to benefit every individual here in the United States, not just White males, our country is going to continue to witness an increase in street violence, drug activity of all types, meaningless homicides, poverty, and racial discrimination-prejudice. I believe by educating as many individuals as possible, our country overtime will become a much better place to live, and our future generations will have much more to offer than ignorance and violence.

Brown Foundation. (2004). Brown v. Board of Education: About the Case. Retrieved December 31, 2008, from http://brownvboard.org/summary/

CNN International. (2003). Fortune names top companies for minorities: McDonald's tops list. Retrieved Jan 9, 2009, from http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/06/24/fortune.minorities/

Colby, DC. (2007). Publications and Research: African American Life Expectancy Gap Narrows But Disparities Persist. Retrieved January 17, 2009, from http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=24499

Flores, B., Keehn, S., & Perez, B. (2002). Critical Need for Bilingual Education Teachers: The Potentiality of Normalistas and Paraprofessionals. Retrieved December 28, 2008, from http://brj.asu.edu/content/vol26_no3/pdf/art2.pdf

Grey, B. (2008). World Socialist Website: High school drop-out rate in major US cities at nearly 50 percent. Retrieved December 28, 2008, from http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/scho-a03.shtml

Just the Stats. (2008, November 13). Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Retrieved December 30, 2008, from EBSCOhost database.

Kaufman-Rosen, L. (1995 March 27). Holes in the glass ceiling theory. 24(2), Retrieved January 1, 2009, from Gale PowerSearch database.

National Officer of Minority Health. (2003). U.S. Department of Human Health Services. Retrieved January 18, 2009, from http://www.doh.state.fl.us/Minority/CTG/LifeExpectancy03.pdf

Platt, L. (2006). Pay Gaps: The Position of Ethnic Minority Women and Men. Retrieved Jan 9, 2009, from http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/eoc/PDF/BME_Pay_gaps_exec_summary.pdf?page=20072

The U.S. Census Bureau News. (2007). Newsroom: Minority Population Tops 100 Million. Retrieved December 30, 2008, from http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/010048.html