Ethnic Groups and Discrimination the Essay

As Europeans, they came from countries that, although quite poor, had very good education opportunities. As part of the mainstream culture, my ethnic group also took part in the discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities, including the African-Americans, the Hispanic-Americans, the Asians or the Native Americans. As part of the white group in America, the Scots presumably inflicted most of the forms of discrimination upon the racial and ethnic minorities, from the extremely overt and violent domination of the African-Americans during the period of slavery, to the more recent forms of discrimination, such as redlining, institutional discrimination, glass ceiling, environmental justice problems and so on.

The English and the Scots formed the first great waves of immigration into the United States, and along with their settlements they also established their supremacy over the other racial or ethnic minorities. These problems are reflected in a number of Immigration Acts that were issued during the twentieth century to prevent other ethnic groups such as the Chinese or the Latin Americans to enter the countries. Moreover, all the other forms of discrimination that aimed at keeping the minority groups into subordinate positions and that denied them equal rights were initialed by the white Europeans who had been the earliest settlers. It is also known that the Scots in colonial America have participated in the slave trade throughout the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries (Landsman 2001, p.60) Overall, the Scots that immigrated into the States were soon assimilated along with the British, and thus became the most important colonizers in early America.

The Scots were white Europeans therefore part of a "privileged" racial and ethnic group that took their mastery over the other races for granted. In the gradually growing diversity of the United States, the European descendents have become numerically inferior over the years, but the discrimination and the prejudice against racial otherness has not decreased significantly. Forms of discrimination still exist and they are manifested especially on the education and labor market, where the people belonging to a minority group may find it much harder to become integrated than a white person. Thus, it can be said that many forms of intolerance and overt discrimination still exist at the root of the social system. These culminate with acts of violence and racial hatred which assume that the members of a certain group are not only inferior but also dangerous. It is very difficult for racial discrimination to desist since there are still ingrained attitudes towards otherness and difference in general. I think that all should feel part of the large multicultural group rather than be isolated according to racial or ethnic criteria.

Works Cited

Brock, William R (1982). Scotus Americanus: A Survey of the Sources for Links between Scotland and America in the Eighteenth Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press

Landsman, Ned C. Nation and Province in the First British Empire: Scotland and…