America’s Tragic Flaw

America's tragic flaw

“I can understand why he did not see me as American. He had a narrow but widely shared sense of the past- a history that has viewed American as European in ancestry (Takaki 2)” Americans today who do not have a racial background from European are seen as foreign. The English view is still around today and plays a major role in history about the white man's country. With the evidence in A Different Mirror, Who Is an American and the Ancestry of Inferiority. I will prove the role of race, ethnicity and the impact of the English view have constructed what it means to be an American. The history of racism is often invisible to the majority for several reasons they suffer less from it they do not attribute their misfortune to race they do not always see the suffering that people of color undergo; racism has been America's tragic flaw.

The first English colonizer in the New World found that the Indians reminded then of the Irish because of their tribal organization, practices of herding, and they lacked knowledge of god and good manner. Indians “were depicted as cruel, barbarous and most treacherous (Takaki 31)”; uncivilized, wild and savage people. The new man in the new colony made it their responsibility to force the Indians to be civil and Christian what the English viewed as desirable which will later be viewed as American. The notion of race has played a role in the way Americans think about history once played by the Indians. After the Indians lost their power they became inferior to the English. Someone’s race will continues to tempt many people into the mistaken belief what it means to be American.

“I believe this government was made on the white basis,” said Stephen A. Douglas in the article Who Is an American by Eric Foner. Douglas continues to say “I believe it was made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity for ever. Many white Americans do not consciously think about this being true because racism is invisible to the majority. Most non-white races have struggled over power and privilege, over oppression over competing senses of justice and right because of all of this what it means to be an American has different views depending on the group. Non-White see Americanness as a struggle for equal rights because the whites have never had to go against the government and fight to be equal.

The question of race continues to divide our society we have widely divergent views on whether a problem even exists. Most Blacks see racism as a problem the majority of white Americans