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Class and Race Barriers in America
Class and race are still two barriers to people in terms of educational institutions, income levels and type of occupation. These barriers occur as privileges to people of certain social classes and race, whereas people from other races and classes do not enjoy similar benefits. American communities that are segregated on the basis of their race or class have characteristics similar to those of people in developing countries. This is despite being in a first world country, which is also the superpower. These characteristics include poor development of their economics, being unhealthy or living in unhealthy conditions and inability to reach to the highest level of education.
Impacts of Class and Race Barriers of People’s lives
Studies carried to out to explore the effects of these barriers in the American society have provided mind blowing results. Children of the African American background have 300% chances of being poor when compared to Caucasian children. This fact could be due to the fact that Asian American families usually have more than two family members with good careers. In terms of accessing credit facilities, African Americans are at the highest disadvantage of receiving high cost mortgages. Latinos and Caucasians are the next in line in terms of this disadvantage. With this disadvantage, it becomes very challenging for an individual in this category to consider getting a house. In terms of income levels, African Americans have the highest levels of unemployment followed by Caucasian Americans. Moreover, the few African Americans who get some jobs earn approximately 0.75 the average earning of Caucasian Americans.
Impacts of Class and Race Barriers on Education and Physical Health
A study carried out in the year 2006 found out that class and race were still huge barriers to getting education for some races. This is despite the increased improvement of ensuring equality, these gaps were still evident. For instance, children of African Americans as well as those of Latinos had the highest chances of attending the schools meant for high poverty individuals. Even after accessing poor quality education, Latino students were very likely to drop out of high school. In terms of physical health, challenges such as presence of untreated diseases and unnecessary hospitalization are evident in the minority races. Another issue in terms of physical health is complications during birth and with newborn children among these classes of people.
These barriers do not only affect the minority races or classes of American people. They affect the entire society but they can be resolved for a better society.