Paper Example on Racial and Gender Equality

Introduction

The Jefferson's famous phrase "all men are created equal" has been the driving force for the Americans fight for equality. The Americans political institutions have come up with several laws and bodies to fight for racial, gender, and ethnic equality despite the fight getting challenging. Jefferson may face criticism out of what he meant by equality, Jefferson was surrounded by the slave when saying the statement. Jefferson's slaves were mostly black or mulatto bringing about the grounds for criticism on racial discrimination (Iwabuchi, 2000). To counter the criticism is the fact that Jefferson later fought against slavery claiming that it could affect both the master and the slaves (Gordon, 1996). Jefferson's statement also faces criticism because he had a negative attitude towards black and saw them as inferior to the white and believed no white could mingle with a black; the belief was however later disapproved when he had an affair and bore with one of his slaves. Despite Jefferson's criticism, there should be a measure to tell the achievement of equality in the United States.

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The struggle for racial and gender equality has been on the rise not only in the United States but globally. The battle just like the struggle for independence has cost a lot of time and devotion of the people to prove it that we are all equal with many states setting up guiding laws and regulations to aid the struggle. Top begin with racial equality, Jefferson's phrase "all men are created equal" was meant to refer to only the white, land-owning males. The struggle was staged to include all men and lately to cover all the people globally. It has been a notion that the whites are superior to the black or the African-American or the Asians (Boulton, 195), but the winning of the fight for racial equality is near. Martin Luther King Junior's dream fulfillment whereby Obama, an African-American, ruled the United States demonstrates the achievement. The understanding that one may be dark in color in one area of the universe, but upon relocating to another area, they are seen bright helps to reduce racial discrimination. Like African-Americans in the United States will be viewed as dark-colored but after relocating to Ghana, they become brightly colored. The other factor that can signify the achievement of racial equality is the high rate of intermarriages between people of different races and also the blood transfusion amongst people of different races. There might be a few cases of racial discrimination, but that has reduced compared to the past.

The gender equality has been a fierce struggle which achieving requires more and more effort. The females are always seen as inferior compared to males even today's societies through the institutions and laws have been set up to help put the required efforts to achieve the goal. It has been completed to incorporate all genders in Jefferson's phrase, "all men are created equal" which first meant males, but we have witnessed continued gender inequality in the United States and the world at large. Despite the women struggle, it is still hard for them to get managerial positions but they get seats with less authority (Hogan, 2001). In cases where both partners are earning and working the same hours in offices, the women have more housework, and children care. The women also earn lesser compared to what men make, and their struggle to attain political posts have been hard as illustrated by the comparison of the genders of political leaders in both the upper and lower houses.

The struggle against racial inequality is almost won and thus enabling the American society to achieve Jefferson's goal of equality. Racial discrimination may have reduced but not ended in the United States because of the small cases of Black and Latino youths facing biases by shopkeepers or in schools or healthcare institutions and other days to day activities (Kathy et al., 2009), but it is not as rampant as it was. The Jefferson's goal will, however, be achieved fully when all racial discrimination is done away with. The fight against gender inequality was on the rise, but it has of late reduced the momentum and though it may not head back to the way things were is may be hard to bring about gender equality ultimately may be in the generations to come since in most cases women are discriminated. The achievement of Jefferson's goal for equality will be when eradication of all types of discrimination happens, and that will be the joy of everyone I included.

References

Boulton, A. (1995). The American Paradox: Jeffersonian Equality and Racial Science. American Quarterly, 47(3), 467-492. doi:10.2307/2713297

Gordon, S. (1996) Thomas Jefferson, Equality, and the Creation of a Civil Society. Retrieved from http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol64/iss5/1

Hogan, R. (2001). Class, Race and Gender Inequality. Race, Gender & Class, 8(2), 61-93. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41674972

Iwabuchi, Sachiko. (2000). Thomas and his views on equality.Hokkaido University Collection of Scholarly and Academic Papers: HUSCAP. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2115/14983

Kathy, S., Beverlyn, S., Doren, W., &Janeese B. (2009). Social inequality and racial discrimination: Risk factors for health disparities in children of color.

Washington, DC:Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, Howard University College of medicine. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-1100E