Is Racism Still Relevant Today

As children, we were taught to treat others as we wished to be treated. We were taught to love and value one another, we were taught morals. However, as time passed, a growing hatred consumed us. We as a nation, lost our empathy amongst each other and began to dehumanize our own neighbors. We lost sight of our love, our unity, and our morals. We as a whole began to discriminate on the basis of skin color, religion, and race. Racism is injustice act that has been around for centuries, affecting millions of people all throughout the world, and can still be found in present day. Racism is instilled in people through various influences and as a result they have shaped and affected the lives of many minorities.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary,

In 1942, a man named Adolf Hitler carried out what is known today as one of the world’s most violent racism acts (“Intro to Holocaust”). He blamed the Jewish people for the German economic crisis (“Intro to Holocaust”). Hitler devoted his power as chancellor of Germany to lead a racist movement in order to hunt down, capture, and take the lives of over six million people of the Jewish race (“Intro to Holocaust”). Furthermore, during the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. played a vital role in clearly defining a vision for the future regardless of individuals’ race. In his most famous speech, "I Have A Dream” MLK fought for the rights of African Americans in order to gain equality and respect (King, Jr.). Although it has been over half a century since these motivational words were spoken, our country still faces a similar issue today. The "Black Lives Matter" movement is currently fighting against police brutality amongst a minority group that has been fighting discrimination for years.

At the age of fifteen, I started dating a young boy who was of color. This young man was someone I cared deeply about and eventually became my best friend. He was a well-educated gentleman who had a full scholarship to an Ivy League school to play soccer. However, slowly but surely he became a secret I had to hide from my family. My parents could not accept the fact that my boy friend was of dark skin color. For three long years, I tried to show my parents that the color of his skin did not make him any less of a person. However, they still disrespected and judged him even though he never caused me any harm. They told him to stay away because their daughter did not need to be around somebody “like that.” To this day, those words echo in my head. If I ever had the opportunity to apologize on my parent’s behalf, I would apologize for their ignorance. They were unable to see past his skin tone and respect his great