America. Throughout elementary, middle, high schools. In workplaces. In homes. Racial discrimination is still a major limiting factor in "life, liberty, and justice for all". Some may say that racial discrimination is rapidly dwindling in the United States. Obviously, these commentators have never been to Kinston, North Carolina, where there are signs nailed to telephone poles promoting the KKK. Another issue which comes to mind is the principles of democracy. They are known as the basic standards over which modern democracy is run. Recognition of the worth and dignity of every person is one such principle, and racism in the United States openly defies it. How is the worth and dignity of a black woman living in Arkansas recognized when racial epithets are screamed outside her window at night and she is pushed, purposefully, to the ground by a white male? Are we considered equal, another principle of democracy, when a cross is burned on the lawn of a young black mother living in Arkansas by three white men wearing Confederate flags on their clothing? The KKK encourages the "white brother" to fly the Confederate flag, considered in the South a symbol of racial intolerance. If America is without the principles of democracy, then is it still a democratic nation?
Racism has plagued the world in many forms. Six million Jews were killed because of the anti-Semitic ravings of one terrible man. Clearly American racism is not as extreme, but was there not an anti-black lynching in the 1960s? Thirty years ago. The last public lynching known in America. But it continues. Shootings. Drownings. Hangings. Draggings. All have occurred in the South long after such hypocritical acts were made punishable by law and frowned on, to put it lightly, socially. In Texas, three white men who dragged a black man to his death was recently tried in the court system. Two of them were given the death penalty. One still awaits judgment. Though I approve of the justice, are not we, in killing these men, no better than they? We meaning the government, ourselves. Is tit-for-tat the best system of punishment for these racists? Are we not, in killing them, sinking to their level? Yet how do we truly and justly punish these men for their terrible acts?
back