In every public place there were two water dispensers; one for the “white” and one for the colored. This was due to government-enforced segregation laws dating back to the 1940s. These segregation laws required that there be separate water cooling terminals for “whites” and those with darker skin. Segregation laws also meant that while all citizens were provided the same public services (e.g. schools, hospitals, etc.), those of African American descent had to be separated from “whites,” and often received less public services than to citizens of African American origin. “whites”. This form of institutionalized racial discrimination no longer exists; however, racism continues to plague our society today. (Columbia University)In 2009, over 40,000 race-related crimes occurred in the United Kingdom alone. (Johnson) Furthermore, in the United States of America, it has been recorded that, in the last year, approximately 50% of all hate crimes were racially motivated. (U.S. Department of Justice) Poverty gives way to social tensions due to the economic stress everyone experiences and can result in mutual anger in the form of racism. At this point, we rely on education to have an effect; Education teaches us what is right and what is wrong, but poverty is usually accompanied by a low level of education. If only we were to direct our efforts towards eliminating poverty and increasing education in our society, perhaps we could also remove racism from our society. While some may argue that trends show that levels of racism in America have significantly decreased over the past hundred years; Factors such as poverty and lack of education stand in the way of ending racism once and for all. If we do not promptly address this difficult situation, the racism r... middle of paper ... attention it once had, we jeopardize society's progress toward a world of equal opportunity. Through better access to better education, we can raise awareness of the mistakes we have made in history and avoid them. In this way, we can begin to make progress towards stopping crimes of discrimination, and perhaps we can move society towards a world where we can truthfully say that “racism does not exist”. Columbia University Works Cited. Jim Crow. 2009. January 23, 2011. Johnson, Wesley. The data shows a sharp increase in the number of hate crimes. November 30, 2010. January 23, 2011. United States Department of Justice. Uniform crime reports. 2011. January 23 2011 .