Free Custom «Racial Segregation» Essay Paper

Slavery denotes the social system that saw people treated as any other kind of property to the extent of being sold, bought as well as forced into manual labor. The innocent civilians were captured from their farms and sold off far away from their families. As such, several families were made to live either without the mother or the father. In most cases, the slave traders would pick the father who certainly happened to be the sole breadwinner of the family. This implied that the entire family was left with a serious void that would certainly never be filled. As such, innocent kids lived desperate lives simply because of selfish acts by a section of the global society. Ideally, the two lovers into “She’s Gone” are not able to find a meaning for their lives in a social set up where they are regarded as outsiders. In fact, they only get to enjoy bit of their love when Kofi follows Keisha all the way to America when he realizes that she is pregnant with his child (Dawes, 2007).

The literature on colonization is not economic with the truth either. The colonial era saw richer countries invade the less organized states and set up their own governments to exploit the natural resources in those countries. As a result, the colonial governments set up several agricultural farms where they employed the local population to work for no pay. As a result, the local people began to organize themselves into small armies to wrest their lands from the colonial masters. This kind of struggle saw wanton killing of the locals, something that would haunt the current generations when the literature exposes the actual events that marked these incidences (Armstrong, 1998).

Racial Segregation in the United States

The story in “She’s Gone” describes the burning desire to belong culturally into a society as well as into the prevalent social class. This was never to come true to blacks in the United States up to a few decades ago. Racial segregation in the United States saw a frequent violation of people’s human rights as well as their recognized sense of the world. As a result, this put the citizens majorly the black population into a state of mental confusion and insecurity. More so, such kind of raging confusion became profound when the people or institutions looked up to by the people to instill a sense of reason turned out to be a complete betrayal leaving the people with more dissolution than ever though. Indeed, post colonial literature has greatly served to start off the wounds afflicted historically on the people by such acts of injustices. As such, when the blacks read about the encounters of their forbearers in the current literary works they cannot help but wonder in trauma what humanity can have in store for its people (Dawes, 2007).

There are vast numbers of postcolonial literature that dwell at length on the aspect of housing and accommodation. It is highly anticipated that any African American who deeply analyses these situations would suffer some bit of psychological trauma. Although the current crop of American citizens are almost devoid of such acts of discrimination, any sensible human would stop for a moment and ask why their forefathers had to be treated in such a manner. As such, they would have to struggle with a feeling of worthless before the majority mainstream group of Americans composed mainly of the white population (Behrendt & Richardson & Eltis, 1993). This would exemplify the kind of trauma that Dorothy faced when all of a sudden she could not afford the same housing as her former colleagues after retirement. In America, this is the story till today. Perhaps due to the fact of African American engagements in crime and thus seen as more unreliable, lending institutions in America have not completely shed off the aspect of racial discrimination (Philips, 2003). For instance, they treat black applicants for mortgages quite differently when they attempt to purchase houses in the white dominated residences than when they do the same in the black dominated areas. As such, the segregated living patterns have been preserved along the racial lines. Essentially, the post colonial literatures just like the current happenings in the society, would make this minority group of Americans develop a sense of inferiority that is contrary to the American dream as captured in the Constitution of the United States (Sechaba, 1992).

The Political Stakes

Clearly, the political stakes would be high if not for the timely interventions of historical statesmen. For instance, it took the statesmanship of Nelson Mandela to unite white and non white South Africans to the extent that they could still work together to build one nation for themselves. However, the situation remains volatile especially if some unscrupulous politicians decide to take advantage of the tension to win votes. This would cause a serious civil strife that could erode all the economic gains that the society has made in the recent past. As such, all the global players are keen to put in place institutions that restrain the people from taking up arms against the other. Indeed, this is the reason the United Nation was formed to supervise the inter-state relations so we don’t get ourselves in a World War III (Phillips, 2007).

Conclusion

The teaching of post colonial literature should ideally come up together with psychological counseling so that they don’t become the genesis of new wars. The students must be made to understand that it took the support of the white population to put a stop to some of these systems. As such, they should see whites as being part of the solution rather than the cause of the problem. Besides, such experiences never mark the end of the world as Kofi and Keisha were able to live happily again in America ( Sunga, 1997).