Imagine the year is 1920, and you are an African American that wants to go out to see a movie—maybe even get a nice meal at a restaurant. Or maybe you are in desperate need of a bathroom, but there aren’t any colored bathrooms in sight. What if you finally found the love of your life, but their family hated you because you looked too different from them. These are just little examples of what African Americans had to go through for years–it wasn’t just them though.  If you weren’t white in these years, you were frowned upon and dehumanized. Every person of color was treated like filth just because they are darker; as much as people like to deny it, there is still racism in America today. Is it as severe, no, but it’s still there. Although people think racism is behind us, actually racism is still a really big problem in America due to bills being regulated to stop talking about racial issues, the police brutality done at peaceful protests, and the fact that people of color are more likely to be abused by the police than are white people.

       In America, if you are any sort of colored person the world is after you. According to the article “Risk of being killed by the police” by Edwards et al it states information such as: “Black men are 25% more likely to be killed by the police over the course of life than are white men” ; “Black women are 1.4% more likely to be killed than are white women.” Also, “Latino men are between 1.3% and 1.4% more likely to be killed by the police than are white men, but Latina women are between 12% and 23% more likely to be killed by the police than are white women.” This article also states that black men and boys run the highest risk of being killed by the police (Edwards). In addition to this article, Edwards writes that people predict that one thousand black boys and men will die due to being shot by the police. This also includes the additional 81 American Indian/ Alaskan Native males that are murdered by the police. Andrew Chow, the author of “People Expected Police Behavior to Change,”writes that black people are three times more likely to be terminated by the police than white people and writers doubt the numbers of black killings will decrease. Research shows that these murders, bestial and cruel, could be tied to racial profiling. Racial profiling is “any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security, or public protection, that relies on stereotype about race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin…” (Ontario Human Rights Commission). On top of this statement, police brutality can be very extreme and in some cases fatal.

     In the year of 2020, we lost African American George Floyd due to police brutality. Adam Gabbatt, the author of “Protests about police brutality”, writes “… widespread incidents of police violence include punching, kicking, gassing, pepper spraying, and driving vehicles at often peaceful protesters…” Basically explaining all the inhumane things police officers do to innocent beings–it doesn’t end there. In the same article it reads that a police officer drove into a crowd of civilians, peaceful and orderly,  knocking over multiple people. Gabbatt also goes on to expound that officers violently pushed over a 75-year-old man causing him to end up on the ground; a group of officers were jumping protesters at a protest in Philadelphia. Similarly, he writes that a Los Angeles police trapped a swarm of protesters under an engine spraying them with tear-gas. In other articles like “The Vox” by Julia Dupuis explain that “shaky footage from a bystander shows the officer pushing her face-first against the wall while other protesters scream for her release.” This single quote majorly reveals that police have no respect for protesters or their beliefs. Another quote reads “That’s when, she said, officers followed them into the parking garage, blocked them from leaving, and arrested her, breaking her wrist in the process” (Dupuis).Though it looks like this all happens in America to African Americans: police brutality is all over the world–examples in this next article can prove this statement “Columbian police were responsible for the deaths of 11 protesters during anti-police protests that swept the capital in September 2020” (“A police massacre”). African Americans are not the only ones who join in on these protests, in fact we have started seeing more Indigenous people at protests. The brutality shown towards this group of people led to the American Indian Movement. This movement helped Native Americans live freely and comfortably after the government put them in merciless living conditions (“Police brutality drove American Indians to George Floyd protests”). Sadly, Native American are the most likely group of people to be murdered by the police (“Lakota People’s Law Project”). This is really a shame because the police are supposed to be the ones protecting us, yet they’re the ones slowly killing off various groups of people. Surely it doesn’t take much for the government to take away any freedom people of color have.

     It seems as if the government is against people of color–for example, some states have put laws into consideration that ban the talk about critical race theory. Critical race theory, better known as CRT, is defined as “an academic approach that examines how race and racism function in American institutions, has inspired some backlash in conservative circles across the United States” (Camera). Banning CRT information has been pondered on since January of 2021. For instance, in the article “From slavery to socialism” the author stated “Since January 2021, researcher Jeffery Sachs says, 35 states introduced 137 bills limiting what schools can teach with regard to race, American history, politics….” Some of these states include: West Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Michigan, Rhode Island, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, North Dakota, New Hampshire, so on and so forth. Reasons why South Carolina would put down these laws is because they say this topic could create “discomfort, guilt, or anguish” according to Terry Gross, the author of “From slavery to socialism”. Furthermore, Gross wrote that teachers will now have to start second guessing themselves when it comes to CRT because of these laws preventing it. Isn’t this America where we have freedom of speech? It doesn’t help the fact that in “New Hampshire, a group of conservative mom’s are offering a 500 dollar bounty to catch teachers who break a state law prohibiting certain teachings about racism and sexism” (Camera). In “Bills banning critical race theory” written by Lauren Camera she stated that Senator Marsha Blackburn thinks that“ American schools should be a place for education - not indoctrination.” Which can be highly agreed upon. Above all, we shouldn’t ban the talk of critical race theory.

     Although people think racism is behind us, actually racism is still a really big problem in America due to bills being regulated to stop talking about racial issues, the police brutality done at peaceful protests, and the fact that people of color are more likely to be abused by the police than are white people. If these acts of detestation and disgust don’t stop, the world could disintegrate to bits. Think about all those children who are going to grow up in a world hating on others because they don’t look the same. Everyone is trying to escalate from the past, but with all these bills being passed, and brutality the only direction we can go is backwards. Don’t live in the past because that blocks the way to the future. If this ignorance keeps up, then what was the Civil rights Movement for? What was the point of the American Indian movement? To know better is to do better, so keep talking about CRT; keep protesting against police brutality, and lastly keep standing up for what’s right because that is the only way to beat this unfair system.

                                                    Work Cited

Number of People Shot to Death by the Police in the United States from 2017 to 2022, by Race.

www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/.

People Expected Police Behavior to Change After George Floyd's Murder. The Numbers Tell Different Story. Andrew Chow, 13 May 2021, autos.yahoo.com/autos/people-expected-police-behavior-change-103055738.html.

Protests about Police Brutality Are Met with Wave of Police Brutality across US. 6 June 2020, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/06/police-violence-protests-us-george-floyd.