One or Two continuing effects of slavery on our culture Essay

One or Two continuing effects of slavery on our culture - Essay Example The objective of this paper is to discern the nature of the damage and destruction, the particular institutions, persons, practices and policies that contributed to the lingering effects of slavery. The degree of the harm and its continuing effects is broad and includes most, if not all, of American society and its government. Just as white Americans have benefited from education, life experiences, and wealth that were handed down to them by their ancestors, so too have African Americans been harmed by the institution of slavery. The fruits of their labor were stolen from them; their African culture, heritage, family, language and religion were denied from them; their self-identity and self-worth were destroyed by repression and hatred. Sociologist Glenn C. Loury noted that "The severity of slavery's injury is far more profound than any cash transfer will be able to reverse." Furthermore, Loury has written of the immense task of how "teasing out underlying implications across the centuries of procedural violations" is difficult. Giving "compensation for identifiable historical wrongs" for specific individual actions may be possible; a procedural account "cannot possibly work for broad social violations..." Throughout the Americas, work impos... Giving "compensation for identifiable historical wrongs" for specific individual actions may be possible; a procedural account "cannot possibly work for broad social violations..." Throughout the Americas, work imposed as punishment for entire groups and generations of peoples were nearly all of their waking hours in furnishing the conveniences, caprices and luxuries of a diverse metropolitan (Paupp, 2003). The new urban poverty housed so many African-Americans who are still locked in segregated areas that are less favorable to employment and employment preparation than other areas of the city, where weak formal employment networks lead toward greater social isolation and exclusion, there exist a corresponding decline and reduction in their chances for acquiring human capital skill and adequate educational training. Most urban and labor economists learned the fact that employment in manufacturing has diminished in central cities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest. Strong connection of poverty and unemployment is the major significance of this trend for African-Americans. The federal government withholds mortgage capital and makes it hard for urban areas to retain or attract families able to purchase their own home, manipulates market incentives which draws middle-class whites into the suburbs and, in effect, trapping blacks in the inner cities. Some government policies are also causal factors in the height of unemployment rate in the inner cities and other underlying areas, directly and indirectly. The distinction from central business districts, the uprooting of many black communities by urban renewal and forced migration, the displacement of many poor people from their homes to accommodate highway