I Have A Dream… That People can Still be Discriminated Against in 2014 | Teen Ink

I Have A Dream… That People can Still be Discriminated Against in 2014

March 2, 2014
By CashMoney BRONZE, Oswego, Illinois
CashMoney BRONZE, Oswego, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

“I have a dream…” This is the beginning to one of the most historic speeches in the United States of America today. The purpose of the speech was to stop discrimination of “colored” citizens of the U.S.A. Even though “colored” people finally got their rights that they deserved, they are still discriminated against today through hate groups and racial comments in the workplace or at school. Did Martin Luther King Junior really want it to be like this though? Today, in many societies, people are discriminated and hated against them for being a certain skin color, race, religion, culture, or ethnic group and racism is a enormous social issue in today’s societies. Racism is just another form of harmful bullying that makes people doubt themselves and sometimes, want to commit suicide. After all, bullying is a high cause of issues in schools today. The racists in today’s societies are not letting people become what they want to become and slowing people down in their jobs, schoolwork and their overall lives. Racists just want to be satisfied with themselves for feeling superior to another group of people of another race or ethnic group and want to hurt people.

To begin, an example of the Racism conflict and the effects it has on people in our society today can be shown in one instance. In New York, a kid named Osama al-Najjar is a 15-year-old Arab from Jordan. Osama shares his name with Osama Bin Laden, the Islamist who ordered the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. At Osama’s school he got constantly subject to racism. During the school day, Osama was constantly called “terrorist” or “Bin Laden.” As a result of this cruel behavior that Osama al-Najjar was enduring, his studies got worse, he got into fights at school and even ran away from his home several times. At times, Osama al-Najjar got so depressed that he had serious thoughts about suicide. After he was relieved of his depression symptoms caused by racism, he changed his name to Sammy, in hopes that the racist comments would stop. This is obviously not right and people should never do that to one another. The racists that were constantly attacking Osama were just trying to make him feel terrible for sharing a name with a well-known terrorist.

Another example of racism is at schools in the United Kingdom. The results research in 2007 shows that black pupils were praised less, told off more and often had harsher punishments then white pupils at the same school. The teachers were probably not being deliberately racist, but there is a common stereotype that black students are not good with schoolwork and do worse things than white students. This stereotype goes around because black students do not have all the resources that white students have, especially the boys. Hidden racism also exists in the work environment. African-Americans and Hispanic people in the United states are found to be treated more unfairly and have lower paying jobs than white people, even when working the on the same job. Even if they go to college and get a degree, there is still the barrier of finding a good job, which is statistically harder for African-Americans and Hispanic than white and Asian people.

Furthermore, racists can affect people in the work environment too, and people will still be racist to their fellow co-workers. Statistics show that from 1997 to 2010 racism complaints from workers have more than doubled. More statistics show that 89% of workers in March 2011 believe that they have either witnessed or been a part of discrimination in the workplace. These hurtful comments and actions can cause the victim of the racism to have mental illnesses like depression and suicidal thoughts.

Lastly, there are some groups of people who just take racism way too far. These groups or just singular are called “extremists.” Some extremists that most people have heard of are the KKK (Ku Klux Klan). The KKK believes that the U.S.A should be a Caucasian only country. In 1922 the KKK’s most active year, they had over 4.9 million followers that would murder Asian, Hispanic and African-American citizens of the United States. This was cold-blooded and totally unpatriotic of what they did and currently do and we should not let these people reflect us as a country. Also, in Poland, on the Jewish graves after World War II, there was a group of people who would go and draw swastika symbols on their graves with spray paint, just so they can never remember the massacre of Jewish people during World War II. That is just truly mean and it just lets them feel more superior over them for giving them terrible thoughts about their loved ones that died in World War II.

Racism today is a global issue and needs to stop because it has done no good to any country today. Especially in the U.S, people need to stop being so racist and putting others down just so they can feel superior to them. All racism does is push people backwards and regress in things like schoolwork, jobs, and personal lives.



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