Racism Racism is an evil that can destroy socitiy. America is a nation of immigrants and, as such it^1 s a diverse society where racism and prejudice have no place. Everyone came here from somewhere. Our country is based on the phrase, ^3 All men are created equal. ^2 We are a diverse nation where racism and prejudice are unwarranted. Racism hurts people.
Racism has been present in our world for more than 3, 000 years. Take African-Americans, before the Million Man March, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, black people were given less respect than dogs. For the first century of our country^1 s existence, blacks were slaves with no rights. Even after the Civil War freed them, there was no equal opportunity and much oppression of them by whites, particularly in the South.
They were constant targets of violence and were put to death by racist hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ^1 s civil rights movement was the first step towards a truly de-segregated America.
If it had not been for people like Dr. King, Maya Angelou and other strong-willed and just people, the country would probably still have two types of rest rooms — one for whites and one for blacks. Racism has been running rampant in our country through out history. In the United States during World War II, citizens of Japanese origin were taken form their homes on the West Coast and moved to inland camps by our government because, after the Japanese attack on pearl Harbor, our -2- government made a generalization abut the Japanese. It decided that the Japanese Americans were a threat and so they decided to put them in camps. These camps were internment camps, not harsh like concentration camps, but devastating for people who considered themselves — and were — every bit as loyal citizens as the people who were incarcerating them.
In society today people look for an easy way out of problems. Most of the time, they can just blame their problems on other people or other races, just as the Nazis did with the Jews, the Gypsies and others in Nazi Germany. Hitler was scared of different people so he felt he had to exterminate 6 million of them. When people behave in this prejudiced way, they just make themselves seem ignorant. One of the darkest periods in American history was when we massacred the American Indians so we could settle their lands.
Why did we betray and kill the Indians? We killed them because they were different, because we were afraid of them and because we wanted their land. People assume because they were not white and were not as industrialized as white people that they were a lesser race. After we massacred most of the Indians we put the remaining on reservations specifically for Indians. People who are racist or prejudice are ignorant and do not see what Indians can contribute to the country. By killing the Indians the world was deprived of what the Indians might of contributed. If people could see beyond ethnic origin racism would not be a problem..