Social Ignorance

   In this day in age, the youth that is being brought up follow in the footsteps of their parents, piers, teachers, and media influences. Our ancestor's traditions, cultures, and moral values have been lost through generations under constant external influences. Few people as they grow up actually even know of their historical background and even those who do most likely do not practice their cultural traditions. Without true knowledge of our ancestry and culture how can we embrace our ethnicity our race. People do not know what their true race is because of lack of knowledge.
   In today's society people see race as the color of your skin or where you're from but it goes much deeper than that. Your race is your past your ancestral genes that make up who you are not the color of your skin. People connect race with all types of stereotypes which leaves the next generations following after your bad influences. I see the definition of race today as- a means to describe, categorize, and separate the world's people. This is a shame that the world has come to this point in life where we are judged by the color of our skin and by where we are from but not by what we have done and contributed.
   How we see race and use it, it is just another word for hate. Hate against someone you don't know, someone you never even met before which is taught through the people around you. Stereotypes, bullying, discrimination, isolation, prejudgment, RACE..... all a form of hate, can all be linked to racism. Today we see racism as blacks against whites but it goes way deeper than this it includes almost every race and is taught by mainly fear. We fear of a terrorist attack and we try to single out a single group of people to make us feel better but everyone could be a terrorist. This shows that today people are too ignorant to see past color, religion, and origin but instead go with the easiest option, one that I see as pure hate.
   Sure there are other things like sexism that occurs with racism but it only differs the treatment slightly. For instance, if two African Americans, one male one female, went out for a job interview the male would be judged more harshly but most likely get the job because sexism just adds to hate that is already unknowingly possessed by a person. A female would be let down easy but would have to go find another job to apply for. On the other hand, a female has worse stereotypes than a male of any race when it comes to racism. A black woman is seen as ghetto, a blonde white woman seen as extremely stupid and bourgeois and so on but there are countless people that go against this stereotype but still people are too ignorant to see this and continue to label women.
   As long as people stay ignorant and refuse to see past their own beliefs, if you can even call it their own, we will still be separated as a people. We will always be seen as different from one another rather than just being human. The day we stop caring for one another is the day we lose our humanity and this day has come far to long ago. In order for us as a people to finally be equal we must look past one anothers skin color, origin, sex, sexual orientation, lives, and abilities and judge only by the content of our characters.

Promised Land!

   Cursing, sagging, skipping, fighting, apparently this is who we are, unfortunately this is our promised land! In the speech that Dr. King gave the day before his death he said " I've been to the mountain top.... And I've seen the promised land. i may not be there with you. but i wanted you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land." Martin Luther King believed that even after his death, we as a people would achieve racial equality and he was somewhat right in believing this. If Martin Luther King were  to come to our school tomorrow, i am ashamed to say it but he would truly be disappointed with how we as a school see our promised land.
   The first thing you hear and see when you walk into our school are people cursing at each other and many people sagging. The cursing has even reached the point were it is just a normal conversation between two people. If our parents could hear how we talked in school they would strangle us and Dr. King would just walk right back out those twin doors. Sagging is just a pointless reason to show someone your butts which in the 60's was considered inappropriate. Both off these things together are just blatant disregard for authority (because of school rules) and  disrespect to those who raised you and those who fought for your rights.

   It seems as if every other day someone is picking a fight with another person. These fights are usually for infinitesimal reasons or just for "fun" as some would say. Martin Luther King lived his life by a "turn the other cheek" saying and asked his follower to do the same whenever they went on marches. Even for something as big of a reason as our civil rights he stood by his saying this was his "Cardinal Rule". On January 30, 1956 Martin Luther king was attending a meeting when his house was bombed. His wife and daughter were not injured but an angry crowd was outside his house when he came home. He preached non-violence on the destroyed porch to the crown even after his house was ruined. The only word that can describe our actions are pointless and childish but even children back in the day turned the other cheek!
   For the final 20 years of his life, Martin Luther King had fought for our Civil Rights, for racial equality, for equal opportunities and what do we show for it. Everyday people are walking through the hallways and playing around when they should be in class but they see nothing wrong with this. One of that Dr. King fought for was to have equal opportunities in school for black as whites but once we finally achieved this we are not taking advantage of it. The generations before us fought for the right to read, learn, write, and go to school and all most people can do is just sit in class doodling or skipping class and playing in the hall. We take our education for granted and Martin Luther king would have pity beyond belief for us because of our total disregard for what we have.
   At the end of the day Dr. King would lover his head, turn around, and go right back to his place in the after life baffled and ashamed by what we have become.