Everywhere you go, you will see some headline referring to some racist issue that is going on in our society today. Currently, UND is taking a lot of heat after a group of students released a photo about locking “the black bi**h out.” In another part of the country, there are protesters gathering in Charlotte to continue protesting the death of Keith Lamont Scott. Somewhere else, people are criticizing and protesting the police officer who shot Terence Crutcher. Black Lives Matter is continuing to demonstrate that racism is real in this country, and they are right about that.

Think about it. There is racism even when we don’t think that there is. Just because it was a part of our history doesn’t mean that it didn’t disappear. We hear all the time about racial slurs or racial differences. Women are paid less than men, and women of color are paid even lesser than that. There are shootings and protests all over the country and quite frankly, nothing is being done about it.

There is racism on college campuses. UND is standing in flames right now after what has gone viral about what students did to an African American student over the weekend. This is ridiculous. At one point I was proud to be attending UND, but how am I supposed to be proud of a school where students treat others like that. If there isn’t a punishment for those students, well, words cannot even express the anger I would have with the University.

I recently read an article for a public health class about racism. Before reading the article, I didn’t realize that even when we think we aren’t being racist, we may be doing something that is racist. We as humans, tend to block out what we don’t want to know or don’t want to see. I think the American culture has developed this idea that we shouldn’t do anything about it because someone else will do it.

Here’s the thing, there is a problem and we need to fix it. Racism is a problem. No one should ever be judged based on the color of their skin, or where they came from. If that was how everyone treated each other, the human population would seize to exist because everyone would fight. Someone needs to take control and make this change.

People are trying to prove that racism is an issue. I believe it. America needs to make some changes or the entire country will go down hill fast. People need to learn how to not be so quick to judge someone, and people DEFINITELY need to learn how to not escalate a situation. Hello America, it’s time to make a change and to see that racism is the serious issue at hand.