Achieving Social Progress:
Achieving Social Progress:
Race, Racial Solidarity, and Racial Integration
Since the days of reconstruction, the debate over how African-Americans could best obtain equality in the United States has raged on from generation to generation. Blacks have been subjected to racial inequalities in America before America even really existed. And even when blacks were finally "free" after the Civil War, social injustices continued throughout American history, and still exist today. There have been many heated debates throughout the short history of the United States in regards to the best possible course of action for the social progress of black people, but there has never been a consensus on what that course of action is among the country or among blacks themselves. When it comes down to it, racial integration and racial solidarity were (and still are) the basic ideologies that many black political and community leaders argue about to shape social policy and reform in the United States. The American government has followed the idea that forced integration is the best means of success for the African-American population, but is this truly the best way to truly achieve equality? For some people, the answer appears to be yes, but there are many others who would disagree. In this paper, I examine both ideas of racial integration and racial solidarity from a historical perspective and the effects of these ideologies on society as a whole.
In order to truly conceptualize the idea of social progress for blacks, one must first understand what social progress really is in itself. Social progress is exactly how it sounds. It is the process in which societies or individuals become better. According to Lars Orsberg, "social progress (in a liberal society) must be measured in the "enabling" sense that a society progresses when it enables more of its citizens to achieve the kind of life they personally value." Traces of the idea of social...
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