Racisim In Friday Night Lights

1 Pages 347 Words

On July 2, 1964 Lynden B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act prohibited discrimination in most public places, deemed discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin illegal, and allowed the Justice Department to institute suits to desegregate public schools and other facilities. In Odessa, Texas, it was seen as a pain to enforce, and was just another attempt of the federal government to meddle in places where they should not meddle. In 1988, although there were no hate crimes against blacks, whites and blacks were certainly not very friendly. In everyday speech, the residents frequently use the term nigger to describe various things such as the appearance of a person. In addition, blacks and other minorities were forced to live below the tracks and attend their children were made to attend a separate school from the rest of the city’s children.
Racism is the ideology that maintains one race is inherently superior to another (Beach 2003:444). In Odessa, Texas no one believed they were doing anything wrong by suppressing the rights of minorities. It was thought that it was the way things were supposed to be. Whites were allowed to attend the school of their choice, swim where they pleased, and shop wherever. However, minorities had to attend Ector High School, and if they even attempted to stick a toe into the white pool, it was shut down. Racism is an integral part of the society of Odessa. A person skin color determined which side of the tracks he or she lived on, what school they went to, what job they had, and where they shopped. The separation caused some people living in the white section of town to rarely ever see a person of another race.
In conclusion, in Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger, the residents of Odessa, Texas built their society deeply rooted in the belief that white and other groups should not mix. This belief is displayed in their refusal to integrat...