Discrimination in the United States

Discrimination is the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently. This term is used to highlight the difference of treatment between members of different groups when one group is intentionally singled out and treated worse, or not given the same opportunities. As attitudes toward minorities started to change, the term discrimination began to refer to that issue. Over the years, many forms of discrimination have come to be recognized including nationalist,racial, gender, and sexual orientation.

In 1864 the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery. However, in the 1870s Jim Crow laws were introduced in the Southeastern United States. These laws promoted the idea "separate but equal", meaning that all races were equal, although they should be in separate locations and use separate facilities. The mixing of races was illegal in most places such as public schools, public transportation and eating establishments. These laws increased discrimination. For example, though the intent was to provide separate but equal facilities for all races, African-American schools black schools were given worse quality teachers, supplies, and buildings than their white counterparts. Water fountains, bathrooms, and park benches were just a few of the areas segregated by whites due to Jim Crow laws. Discrimination was blatantly done; one example of this is in the case of Rosa Parks. In the South, it was customary for African-Americans to move to the back of the bus or give up their seats to white people. The Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954 ruled that there is no such thing as separate but equal, since separate is inherently unequal.

In the modern United States, gay black men are extremely likely to experience intersectional discrimination. In the United States, the children of gay African-American men have a poverty rate of 52 percent, the highest in the country. Gay African-American men in partnerships are also six times more likely to live in poverty than gay white male couples.

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