Now if I was to be taken back through time to any point in recorded history, I would not be at the risk of any persecution or being treated like a second class citizen. I am a white, blond haired, blue eyed, land inheriting, catholic, male. In most places of the world I would be in complete control of my destiny, and be relatively free.
However, for a large majority of the world, this isn’t true. There are examples of this type of racial injustice all over the world, all over history. One of the best examples of this is the United States of America, during the time of slavery and afterward. The USA was one of the last countries to outlaw the practice of slavery, and all of the American slaves were of African or Afro-Caribbean descent, meaning that they were primarily black. The history of this was that the original slaves used by the Spanish conquistadors were Native Americans, but they were able to escape rather effectively because they knew the lay of the land. In a response to this, the Spaniards brought over Africans that were completely unaware of the environment that they were becoming chained to. And they remained enslaved until the end of the Civil War, when the 13th amendment was ratified by President Abraham Lincoln December 6th 1865. Even with the 15th Amendment which prohibited the denial of voting rights because of race, color, and previous condition of servitude, they were not really treated as anything more than second class citizens. That just continued a long saga of civil injustice against the black people of America. It was not until the civil rights movement of the sixties, led by Martin Luther King Jr. that helped to establish equality between the people of America, end segregation, and help progress society forward. He helped to eliminate the Jim Crowe laws, which kept black people from voting and integrated schools, and other public places.
But as of today, everything is not alright with regards to race in the country. There has become a divide between the police and minorities, where you constantly hear about how the police are abusing their authority or killing young men and women of color. With the new age of terrorism in our modern world, people have become fearful of those who follow the religion of Islam and are afraid of people who come form countries with a large muslim majority. There is a sort of underlying animosity in the United States that is causing problems currently, but they all stem from how we used to handle race when our nation was first formed. In the South, there are still states that have part of the confederate flag as a part of their state flag, while if you were to fly that same piece of cloth in a Northern or Western state, you would be viewed as a racist and a bigot.
Civil rights are still a massive issue today when it comes to the idea that people should be given a fair shake at life, and there are people who believe that there are different ways to achieve that. The Black Lives Matter movement has a multifaceted plan to help make the lives of black people and vicariously everyone’s lives better. There are some though that believe that the movement incites violence against police officers and that there are better ways of going about change. The ACLU is another well known organization that is famous for defending the civil liberties of American citizens. They are currently in a lawsuit against the American government concerning President Trump’s policies on immigration and refugees. They have been known to publicly defend all minorities and try to establish a better equality between all American people.
As a nation we are a long way away from perfect, and we have some work that we have to all come together and do, but if we can learn from our past mistakes, then we can be more than capable of fixing up our American Culture into one that is much more accepting and kind.
http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/
https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights