by Amanda Cook

Created on: October 25, 2008

Some may ask, what is racism exactly? Most dictionaries define racism as prejudice or animosity against people who belong to other races. Also, believing their race is superior. I would say racism is another form of people trying to make themselves feel better. Kind of like the school bully that picks on kids that they think are weaker than them. Mostly, because their afraid of being made fun of.

There are many reasons why some people have this intolerance towards other races. Most of them have probably been raised to believe that their race is better. Some may have experienced something horrible that has caused them to have this hate. Aside from these possibilities I am not sure what else there could be.

The actions of some people baffle me. Hate crimes, lynching, verbal abuse, and these are only a few of things that have happened in our country. We have freedom of speech but there is a line that needs to be drawn.

There are many minority groups that have been discriminated against. Aside from, African Americans, Muslims and Middle Easterners, there was also racism against American Indians, Latin Americans, Jews and even Whites.

Of course as everyone knows African Americans were slaves in the early 1600's and supposedly ended in 1865. But as we all know there are other forms of slavery going on now. They were traded by their own people and some of them blame white people for all their problems now.

According to the FBI and Arab groups, the number of attacks against Arabs, Muslims, and others mistaken as such rose considerably after the 9/11 attacks. Hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern origin or descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000, to 1,501. They were also targeted before 9/11. During the Gulf War in 1991, anti-Arab sentiments increased in the United States. Arab Americans have experienced backlash as result of many terrorist attacks, including events where Arabs were not involved, like the Oklahoma City Bombing, the Iranian Hostage Crisis, and the explosion of TWA Flight 800.

As for Native Americans who were here first, there were stereotypes of Native Americans as "Indian savages". Once their territories were incorporated into the United States, surviving Native Americans were denied equality before the law and often treated as wards of the state. Many Native Americans were relegated to reservations, constituting just 4% of U.S. territory, and the treaties signed with them violated. Tens of thousands of American Indians and Alaska Natives were

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