When studying the civil rights movement it is common to mistake the end of the story with the signing of the civil rights act of 1968. The assassination of Martin Luther King spurred legislation that was seen as the follow up to the civil rights act of 1964. Following the death of Martin Luther King the movement never found a leader as inspirational as him and it fizzled out. People may make the claim that the civil rights movement ended because racism and hatred ended as the racial unrest subsided in the years to come.

“The wage gap is not a skills gap, but evidence of racial discrimination in the labor market.”

–  Major G. Colerman in Job Skill and Black Male Wage Discrimination)

However, racism lives on today in wage discrimination, police brutality, and implicit bias. All are well documented in our society because of their prevalence.

In recent years, the black lives matter movement has spread awareness of the issue of police brutality. The movements have been met with strong criticism from specific facets of society that feel that black people are taking civil rights too far. Many of the critics are white supremacists and support the counter-protest organization called white lives matter. Looking at the similarities between segregationists during the 1950-1960’s civil rights movements to today’s white supremacists is startling because their ideas are framed around the same ideals.

It is extremely saddening to see that such hate exists today. I live in a very sheltered community and I am not exposed to this kind of hatred very often. I must recognize that living sheltered like I have is a great recipe for ignorance. In my studies, I must look at different perspectives to understand their views in order to avoid tunnel vision. I have been looking into my daily life to look at how the undercurrents of race affect my life. I have learned about my privilege that has been given to me and it is easy to see how it affects broader society. There are many places in the world that exhibit the insidious racism that I believe is a grave threat to the ideals of a capitalist world. From sports to corporations race is background information of any decision

In my studies of racism today, I came across the NFL’s Rooney Rule. Originally it was praised for increasing diversity among NFL coaches but in recent years its effectiveness has been challenged. the NFL has proposed an updated rule that would provide more incentive to teams who hire visible minority coaches. I have written a short paper that goes into my thoughts on the issue. I used the MLA 8th edition to cite the sources I used.