Hate Speech In High Schools

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As a child, the first amendment was one that I practiced often. My mother told me that I had never met a stranger, and I had the true gift to gab. However, it was not until my later years of high school that I truly got an in-depth meaning of this amendment and the power that it truly held. According to the Power Point provided to us, the First Amendment, states that we have the freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition (Constitution Power Point Slide 6). These five categories may seem like a small group, but really, they hold a tremendous amount of power. As we dig deeper into the commonalities of these, we see that communication and opinion are two things that are associated with each of them. In today’s society when these …show more content…

Because our first amendment does give us the right to say what we want, when we want to this does leave the door open for hate speech to make a national appearance as we have all seen before. I personally have witnessed loved ones in my life experience heart wrenching threats simply because of the color of their skin. For years we have heard the saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, but how true are these words? I feel that hate speech is a nationwide problem that needs to be addressed and regulated. If one is personally attacked, I think this individual has a much deeper meaning and definition of what hate speech actually is. They would have a true, first hand encounter in order to stand up for what they believe is right and what I wrong. With this being said, I firmly believe that there will always be one bad apple in every bunch. It is our job as positive human beings to put a stop to these harsh actions by standing up for those who are being discriminated against. Albert Einstein said it best when he said “the world is a dangerous place to live. Not because of those who do evil, but because of those who do nothing about it”