Prejudice, racism, discrimination, and stereotypes play a significant role in American society. Race affects how money is in people's lives, affecting many things like homes, cars, clothes, and the people they surround themselves with. In America not everyone has equal opportunities and lifestyles. The purpose of this essay is to inform people about prejudice, racism, money, humanity, economic division, opportunity, and the American dream. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayWhat is prejudice? Prejudice is a feeling against a person or member of a group based only on that person's group membership. A person has prejudices when he has developed some kind of feelings towards a specific group of people before even having the chance to get to know them. There are negative and positive prejudices. Negative is when the attitude is hostile towards a person and positive is when the attitude is excessively favorable towards the person or group. However, prejudice runs much deeper than a person's color. There are many types of prejudice, prejudice is found across gender, religion, culture, background and race. People have discriminated against others based on these attributes since the beginning of time. Bias has become a complex problem in our society, and much of our world's history is based on hate. Prejudice exists on a personal, individual level but also on a social level. In the 1600s, white men used African Americans as slaves and treated them as if they were not human. African Americans were not allowed to use the same drinking fountains as whites until the mid-1900s. The prejudice involved Jews, who have endured mistreatment and persecution for thousands of years. People tempted this group of people, which occurred during World War II. when millions of Jews were exterminated in German concentration camps according to Nazi ideals of racial purity. Our society is filled with such hatred based on people's beliefs and backgrounds. To date there are no solutions to solve this problem in our society. Prejudice could be a hereditary trait, perhaps even genetic. This includes the idea that groups seek to preserve themselves, even unprejudiced people can be prejudiced against their enemies. What is the difference between prejudice and racism? Prejudice is a feeling towards a person or member of a group based only on that person's group membership, which can be positive or negative. Racism is the belief that race is equated with particular traits and the belief that some faces are superior to others. Prejudice is unlikely to have as negative an impact on people as racism. How is money linked to prejudice and racism? Money is and will always be an important thing in everyone's life. Money defines a person and his lifestyle. “Class in America,” by Gregory Mantsios, argues: “The differences are class differences, which have a profound impact on the way they live. More importantly, class difference determines where they live, who their friends are, how they were raised, what they do for a living, and what they expect from life” (387). The richer classes will continue to hang themselves and surround themselves with someone in the same environment. They will not surround themselves with someone inferior to them. The same goes for the lower classes, who will surround themselves with people richer than them. There are many reasons to believe that thewealth is a cause of prejudice. Most members of the wealthy classes have similar qualities such as work ethic, intelligence, etc. Rich people have skills that other citizens do not have, namely the ability to make money. To group together a class of people with the same abilities and then treat them differently is to engage in class prejudice. In today's society there are prejudices in every class. However, the connection of money with racism is a little different than with prejudice. Money is linked to racism because not all races have the same rights and opportunities. People put other people into categories that have taken over humanity. For example, racism created economic division in the 1970s. While African Americans were separated from their families and worked hard trying to do basically what whites could do on their own, they were paid only cents and whites were paid in dollars. White people are seen as rich and perfect human beings that nothing they do is wrong and on the other hand African Americans are considered dangerous low class human beings just because of the color of their skin. “The Case For Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, argues: “Black families, regardless of income, are significantly less wealthy than white families” (580). If slavery and racism did not exist, African Americans would have had an equal opportunity to earn as much as whites, but whites believe that they should be the only ones paid better than other races, but when some other race earns more money than whites and they decide to make a big deal out of it by saying they are drug dealers or taking the job. What is the American dream? The American Dream is the ideal that every American citizen should have equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The American dream has made people less responsible for their actions towards others because the people who are trying to achieve the famous American dream do not want others to come here to achieve it too. Different races do not have equal opportunities to try to achieve the American dream. Even today, African Americans are discriminated against just because of the color of their skin. Hispanics are discriminated against because people legal or not judge them just by looking at them and think they can just tell them they don't belong here. They automatically think they are immigrants. Legal or illegal Hispanics do the jobs that people don't want to do. Once a white person decides to do something and realizes that they can't get a job easily, they start saying that Hispanics are taking their jobs. Whites are the only ones who have fair opportunities compared to other races, such as: equal opportunity to be hired for a job, equal justice under the law, etc. Therefore, the country only seems to care when something happens to rich white people because they are able to pay for more things than other races. The country doesn't seem to care about the poor because if they did there wouldn't be as many of them as there are. What's confusing is that the majority of the poor who end up homeless is that they are mostly all white. “Framing Class, Vicarious Living and Conspicuous Consumption,” by Diana Kendall, argues: “At worst, however, the poor are blamed for their own problems: stereotyping the homeless as bums, alcoholics and drug addicts, trapped in a hopeless downward spiral . because of their individual pathological behavior they are omnipresent in the media” (429). People who are poor or on food stamps, barely make it,.