Racial Injustice In America

As a nation, America has made vast progress in improving the rights of non-white individuals. Does that mean that we are liberated from our guilty participation in inflicting pain and trauma upon millions of peoples in order to become the exceptional nation that we claim to be today? Of course not. We should never forget that we stole and colonized land that was already peacefully inhabited by the Native Peoples in order to achieve Manifest Destiny. We should never forget that we brutally snatched, traumatized, and enslaved hundreds of thousands of Africans in order to profit from and cultivate our own economic desires. We should never forget that we blatantly and egregiously segregated, oppressed, and discriminated against millions of people in education, employment, the law, and many other institutions of society. However, though nightmarish offenses against humanity, we must always remember that these

Like they all say, “To know your history is to know yourself,” so we must learn and understand the immense courage and endurance that Americans, both black and white, have put forth in order for us to be where we are as a society today. When has segregation ever turned out to be favorable, morally aligning with the Constitutional liberties that we so heavily take pride in? Was it in when we legally enforced the three racist provisions, which implemented and protected the institution of slavery? Was it during the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford that perpetuated the deep seated racism and inferiority of blacks at the time or during Plessy v. Ferguson’s principle of “separate but equal?” Perhaps it was favorable when America shamelessly enforced housing segregation during the the time of Shelley v. Kraemer, or when segregation within the public school system was an expectation during the era of Westminister School District v. Mendez and Brown v. Board of