In 1965, the Jim Laws were abolished. They were abolished in the hopes of getting rid of racism and segregation. Now over 50 years later, not much has changed. Sure, things might not be exactly the same as they were when these laws were around, but the overall progression of ending racism and discrimination hasn’t changed.
In 2008, the United States elected the first African American President. Many people hoped that it would be the change and progression that America needed. Although it wasn’t, from the time that President Obama came into office, racism in America worsened and it was no longer pushed under the rug.
In 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, allegedly, by George Zimmerman. After this, it seemed like attacks against race became more apparent. It was all over the news about how African Americans and other minority races were being treated by the police. It started a National campaign “Black Lives Matter”, then racism took off. It stopped being just Whites against minorities and it started being minorities against Whites. The racism started flowing both ways.
Then, President Elect Donald Trump ran for president, which escalated the racism even more. He talked about building a wall and sending people back to their countries. This started an outrage of even more racism throughout the country, suddenly it was a fledge war against white males. The one thing that has changed since 1965, is that it’s no longer Whites targeting minorities.
It is every race targeting every race. And that needs to change. Racism is no longer acceptable. It needs to be eliminated, easier said than done, but it can be done. The racism against Whites needs to stop, the racism against African Americans needs to stop, and it can be stopped. Stop thinking one race is better off, stop thinking it's OK for it happen and it will stop being OK.
Donald Trump is on the far end of the spectrum compared to President Obama. Donald Trump’s campaign pushed that he was going to build a wall between Mexico and the United States. He said he would send people back for their race, this was what fed his campaign. A lot of it was misinterpreted and taken out of proportion but it was how people related to the information that caused the problem to grow. It only created more issues.
To go from having a President who was the first African American President to a white millionaire who talks bad about other races is going to be a huge change for America. Push past the First Amendment and this whole Freedom of Speech bulls**t that suddenly gives people the right to be racist. Racism is fueled by words, that leads to action.
Take for example Tomi Lahren, who’s television show is basically fueled by her racist and ignorant thoughts. Her show first came across my Facebook feed because someone was calling her out on her racism. But what if you don’t believe it is racist, what if we took away that channel of ambition? Racism is wrong. It is discriminatory to call a race out for their actions and time and time again she does that. So why is it OK for her to make money off of being a racist? It’s not. Things like this, that fuel racism need to stop. It needs to be changed.
With people like Donald Trump, who think it’s OK to use their power and race to get a certain outcome will only let racism grow. We can let having him as a President affect us and let racism grow, or we can stop it. Having him as President doesn’t make racism OK, just like how because he “grabbed a girl” doesn’t make it OK for guys to grab girls. That is still against the law. Don’t let the ignorance fool you, racism can be changed. Stop the talk, stop looking at each other by race.
As long as people keep seeing each other has a race, racism will continue to grow. When the new year came, posts and hashtags about “the year for blacks” raced across social media. That’s just another way that people keep fueling racism. It shouldn’t matter what race you are, its everyone’s year. When people single out races in order to create a reaction, all you are doing is adding fuel to the racism fire and making it grow bigger. This was the same argument that people made when Black Lives Matter took a rise. Yes, they do matter, but so does white women’s, Asians, Hispanics, white males. We are fighting a war against each other that doesn’t need to exist. At the end of the day we are all Americans and by allowing racism to exist we are just creating problems in our society that are pointless. The minds of Americans has to change, we need to stop seeing in each other in color and see each other for what we are: struggling Americans who are facing a lot of issues. The issues can easily be diverted. Have more of an open mind. The truth is that no race is better off.I once overheard a conversation between a young African-American boy and his friend, when Trump was elected. The young boy said to his friend, “well at least you are white and protected.” I thought to myself, well I might be white but I am a woman, still the minority. The truth is, the friend isn’t better off because he is white, he still faces problems that everyone does in America. He can still be in poverty, homeless, have to pay overpriced health insurance bills, he can still be targeted. Just like anyone. No matter what your race is, it doesn’t automatically mean that you are better off. Having that picture painted only leads to ignorance. So put down the brush. After all, we are all Americans. United we stand, as one country no matter the race!
