`America,
Things change. The world has changed from what it was, we have advanced in relations, technologies, and race. We’ve improved, we have grown, we have made friends and and even lost some on the way. We have abolished slavery. We have improved how we treat each other,races included. We have grown. Or have we just been lying to ourselves?
Right now, we are at war. At war with ourselves. Protesting, riots, and physical violence has become a normal part of the American life. Stereotyping and racism. Are they the same thing? The two go hand in hand, they are not the same thing, however they are used as the same thing, Intentional, or unintentional. Dehumanizing or not, it will affect people, and change the way they view themselves, which can be dangerous. No one knows how far someone can be pushed, and there is no telling what they will do to defend himself/herself.
Some people will refuse to try to understand, they will say “black people are good for nothing than being slaves.” Or I’ve heard people yell at others, “Go back to (insert country here)” There are people who are flat out racist. They dehumanize them. We have a history, a very dark one at that. As soon as we abolished slavery, there was a loophole in the new laws. The 13th amendment. It reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Let’s take a closer look at that. “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” This is why the supposed crime rate skyrocketed.
In reality, crime rates never went up. African Americans were only incarcerated to be forced back into a legal form of slavery. So we never abolished slavery. We only hid from plain sight. A large amount of what they were arrested for, or seeked out for, were meant to target them. “The war on Drugs” was meant for the African American community.
Take a look at it differently. Say there was never slavery in America. Now say we built our Economic system without massive prison systems(a huge part of it today). Most of today’s stereotypes would not be in place. Stereotypes were only put in place to scare the white population and make it seem right for them to be in cuffs. In the world we are imagining, racism isn’t as big as it is today. There will never be a way to get rid of it, but in this imaginary world, the main population wasn’t scared of them, they were not all in prisons. They are out working hard to support their families, they are with their children here.
In today’s world, our real world, the minority is targeted. Why? Because people are scared of them. The stereotype floats around, “Oh, this guy is black and it’s night time, they must be wanting to break into that house there.” That’s what people are doing. They are afraid because of what people were charged of in the past, and it will be there for a long time to come. This is the same reason politics are ran the way they are.
Donald Trump for example. How he became president was from being racist. He took the stereotype with Middle-Easterners and how all terrorists came from there, and promised he would do something about it. This was quite brilliant actually, but it shows how we take something, and downgrade people, make them feel like they are not human.
People of America, I am heavily disappointed in you. The worst part is, you’re more afraid of change than racism, so it’s likely you will refuse to stop being so. How do you hold your head high when you fear the rest of the world.