Persuasive Essay
All people should be treated equally, no matter who they are. “I was one of the only African-American students when I started attending an all-boys Jesuit high school in the mid-1970’s… I never doubted my place among my more well-off, mostly white peers.” (www.americanmagazine.org) This is the story of an anonymous victim of racism, just one of the many.
This student has had many appalling experiences at school, only for the color of his skin, “One day, I found some of my classmates gathered at the front of the classroom in a fit of laughter. When I approached them, I realized that they were gazing at a piece of paper… an image of a naked African pygmy woman with her breasts exposed, and there was some sort of sticky substance smeared all over the picture. There were words written across the top: It was my last name followed by the word mom…”. Instances like these are what inspired me to write about racism. How can someone have so much hate for another human being simply because they are different? When you look at a person, what do you see first? These are questions I ask myself often. The unfortunate answer is that we all naturally notice they are different from us, whether it’s their eye color, hair color, or skin color. We’re afraid of the unknown, the “what if’s”, the different.
According to (www.harvard.edu) 50% of African Americans say they are treated fairly by the police, 57% get paid/promoted equally, and only 19% say they are treated fairly when trying to vote. If that doesn’t sound unjust then I don’t know what does. I recently read a novel by Kathryn Stockett called The Help, and there was one quote that really stuck with me, “Write about what bothers you, particularly if it bothers no one else.” That is just what I’ve decided to do, except racism should bother others. The truth is, racism will always be around no matter what and people will always be ignorant, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok. If we except racism for what it is history will repeat itself, unless we take action nothing will change.
There is no counter argument for this except for the fact that no matter what race or ethnicity, there is always a racist person. That’s the ironic thing, we all hate each other for being different, yet we all feel the same. I don’t understand how I am supposed to make a counter argument for something that is so un-right and so horrible that if any would just open their eyes, they could see that, but the way we try to open their eyes is wrong. I can understand and completely agree when people say, “There are no more ‘peaceful protests’ they’re all violent” and “What is burning down your own building going to do?” and you know what I say? Why don’t we go back to those days? Remember Martin Luther King? Remember how he made a statement by simply being present in a place he was not wanted? Not disrupting anyone else. Why can’t people get attention like that? I believe when we resort to such acts of violence we are stooping down to their level.
Racism is something that will unfortunately always be around but is not right. Judging someone simply by the color of their skin is a concept I will never understand. Without racism the world would be a much better place.
Works Cited
Kilgore, Chloe. harvard.edu. n.d. MARCH 2019. .
Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2009.
Works Cited
Kilgore, Chloe. harvard.edu. n.d. MARCH 2019. .
Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2009.
