Racism in America

Many people today would say that American's have been making great strides towards ending racism. Compared to the immediate post-abolishment South, there is very little racism that seems to surface. There may be occasional reports when white officers beat an unarmed black civilian, but these events today are rare.

But even with all the advancements that we as a society have made towards looking beyond black and white, I cannot count the number of people who still see shades of brown. I have talked to many people with varying degrees of racial hatred towards Hispanics, from those who believe they should just stay on their side of the border, to those who believe that lethal force should be authorized for use against "all them damn illegals.”

They all have their reasons. Some believe that the immigrants are taking away our jobs – as if those making the remarks would perform the same jobs that many immigrants take on, working 16 hours a day in a field just to pay their rent and have a little left over to send home. Others believe that no one should come to America unless they know how to speak our language – yet many who say this would be insulted if they went to another country and the people there didn't speak English.

This modern wave of racism is the height of hypocrisy. The “founding fathers,” who emigrated form England, came into America as uninvited guests. Not understanding the concept of overstaying your welcome, they decided to round up all the people who were here first and take over their land. Now that we have successfully adulterated the land to the point of poisoning ourselves with every breath we take, we decide that we are the only ones who have a right to be here. Screw all the people who were here first, and screw all the people that have the same dream of the pilgrims. We're Americans, and this is our land – everybody else get off.

I personally aplaud President Bush for his efforts to create a more open border with Mexico (one of the few things I was behind him on). This is not something that could be done overnight. I believe anyone who doesn't have ill intent for the US should be able to come over; however, this does not mean they should have the same right to Government services that natural-born or naturalized citizens have.

In order to do this, we need to protect the right of government services to investigate citizenship status without it being considered discrimination.

Or else we would have to make it easier for people to work here legally. Then they could recieve an identifcation number, earn an honest living, and pay taxes like everyone else.