The Glass Ceiling

My parents gather the entire family as we wait in anticipation to see if for the first time in American History that there might be an African American President. My parent’s eyes are glued to the television sitting on the edge of their seats waiting. The television’s calculating the votes and announces that Barack Obama has won. My father jumps up for joy as if he has just won the lottery, my mother’s frozen like a statue in disbelief. We cant believe it finally, an African American is president in office, making the Black community one step closer to breaking through the Glass ceiling or does it? There are many isolated stories of African Americans who break through the racial barrier, socioeconomic barrier, and the glass ceiling. But is this a fair representation of Africans Americans race as whole? Research suggests that these isolated incidents of African American success doesn't represent the Black race as a whole. The African American community faces many restriction and lack of opportunity that make it difficult to achieve economic success. Begging the question is the American Dream achievable my African Americans?

The United States of America is known as land of opportunity and the ability to achieve the American Dream. The American Dream is the ability for citizens to have equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination and innovation. From what is seen this opportunity is completely true and it can be seen through the success of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump, President Carter, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colin Powell, President Obama, Oprah, and many more others. All of them showing that wealth can be achieved through hard work and determination. However a major aspect of the American Dream is equality but when one looks at the number of Whites who achieve wealth and African American who achieve wealth, there lays a major difference between the two. Over the years the wealth gap between Whites and African Americans have expanded making the wealth gap of an average White household 22 times wealthier than an average Black household.Even though the American Dream isn't impossible for the African American community it is the lack of opportunity for African Americans to have social mobility that limits them from being able to obtain it, making their very few African Americans who actually achieve the American Dream.

The social mobility for African Americans is limited when compared to whites who have achieved high social mobility. It starts with fact that when it comes to wealth. Most white families already have a leg up in the wealth game. They have a familial structure of support -- whether it's an inheritance or help with the first down payment on a house -- that many black families don't have.Therefore creating a gap between African Americans and Whites socially because Whites were already given the upper hand. Even during the interview process African Americans aren't given an upper hand or equal opportunity because according to Economy Research fellows have found that resumes are significantly less likely to get a positive response from potential employers if the applicants have names that are more common in the black community.This restricts the ability for African Americans to get jobs and trying to further themselves in life, making it more likely for African Americans to stay at the bottom of the latter and given little opportunity to escape poverty. Also the factors of discrimination plays a role in the lack of upward mobility because in the job market a black men who [has] never been incarcerated [is] no better in the job market than white men just out of prison. Showing that African Americans who has no criminal record at all is equivalent to a white man who has just been let out of prison expresses the inequality that African Americans face. If an African American male who just got out of prison, his chances of landing a job is slim to none. On top the discrimination that is faced among-st African Americans it is shown that in the youth their less likely to achieve something greater than what their parents have. In the middle class the white-black gap for surpassing your parent’s wealth status is just 23 percent of blacks raised in the middle class surpassing their parents’ family wealth, compared to 56 percent of whites. It is evident issue of not given the upper hand and discrimination limits the ability for African Americans to excel in life and it also affect the youth in the long run.

Also with the lack of opportunity that is faced in African American community can be classified as The Glass Ceiling Effect. The Glass Ceiling effect is an unwritten, unmodified barrier to further promotion or progression for a member of a specific demographic group. This glass ceiling is putting a limit ones success by not letting them compete for the higher paid job. This is seen mostly with minorities and specifically African Americans even though they are qualified do not earn the same pay for comparable positions earning an astounding 21% less than their white counterparts in the same job. As well as limiting their ability to achieve higher paying jobs and furthers them economically. The producer and writer of scandal take about the glass ceiling effect in her acceptance speech for Sherry Lansing Award for leadership. She takes about how the glass ceiling has to be continuously run into and even though there is no progress now there will soon be a crack that will appear making it a little easier to break through. Soon making it to where the ceiling can be broken to where generations after can see the success that lays ahead for them and not have to worry about the ceiling ahead that can put a restriction on their dreams.The African American community is continuously trying to break that glass ceiling even though they haven’t completely broken it they keep trying so it will soon come to a point where the glass ceiling no longer exist. People like Martin Luther King Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Colin Powell, President Barack Obama, and many others slowly breaking down that ceiling making us a little step closer to finally breaking that ceiling.

In uncovering and defining the American dream there is a bit of an untruth. Although it’s implied that the American dream is achievable by all we only see that the American Dream is achievable by few and not the masses. The research leads to the conclusion that the American Dream is not achievable yet for African Americans as a whole. But individuals are slowing making cracks in the glass ceiling. Installing hope in this generation or generations to come that they can break through eliminating the barrier.