Bigotry in the United states

I wrote this essay several months ago, as a civics assignment, but it is very relevant to the kind of things I want to be posting.

As this year has progressed, it seems more and more things have happened to make us wish we had a voice.

Where everyone fails is thinking they don’t have one.

I wrote this because I have a voice. I am sharing it with you because I have courage.

“Courage is grace under pressure” -Ernest Hemingway

 

Bigotry in the United States

9/5/17

Civics assignment

 

“9With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. 10Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. 11Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? 12My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”

-James, 3:9-12

 

One day, more specifically, November eighth, 2016 (election day), I was at CC, hanging out with some friends, and of course, the election was what everyone was talking about.

 

Most of my friends were for Donald Trump, and totally against Hillary Clinton. I was not against her, in the slightest. But everyone was very closed minded about the whole subject, so I hadn’t really bothered making any comments.

 

So, they were talking about how much she sucked, and I said something pretty insignificant and unimposing about how I disagreed with them. And one girl said, “but she likes Muslims.”

 

“So?” I replied.

 

She seemed surprised. “Uh, because Muslims are bad. Have you read the Qur’an?”

 

First of all, no I haven’t, but I know for fact that neither had she.

 

I wasn’t the only one who found her comment shocking and racist. I was accompanied in my loud protest by the boy sitting next to me. Even though, seconds before, he had been talking about how Trump was better as well.

 

I tried my best to stand up for the people she had insulted. “Just because there are some bad people who are Muslim, that doesn’t mean they have to set the expectation for the rest of the Muslims in the world,” I told her.

 

She didn’t listen. Instead, she stood her ground, stating obliviously that all Muslims are bad, and they can’t be trusted, because of what the Qur’an says.

 

She was a Christian. Does she not think that there are things in the Bible that are hard to agree with? I am pretty positive that there are plenty of Muslims that don’t think you should harm anyone, and plenty of Christians who believe you should.

 

And either way, in God’s eyes, every human is the same. Her talking badly about Muslims is just as much of a sin as being one, and believing controversial things the Qur’an says.

 

The racism and injustice of her rude words were unfair, uneducated, and unkind.

 

I witness instances of this happen all the time. I know some muslim kids who had to be taken out of their school because they were getting bullied so bad. I went to help at Nuday Syria, packing boxes for Syrian refugees, and when I returned, I mentioned to my friend that the majority of people helping were Muslim, and I was playing hide and seek with some of the children.

 

His reaction was, “You played with Muslim kids….?” The tone of his voice was shocked with underlying judgmental disgust.

 

Things like this don’t only happen personally to me. It happens all the time, everyday, sometimes on social media, sometimes in a conversation, but sometimes violently.

 

This is the United States of America. This is not Syria. This is not India, or North Korea, or Myanmar, or Ethiopia or Afghanistan, or Iraq. This is the “Sweet Land of Liberty” the “Promised Land”. This is the place where 200,000 Jews traveled to survive the Holocaust. This is the place where 1.5 million Irish fled to survive the famine. This is the place where 3 million refugees have resettled, in hopes of a better life.

 

Where is our promised equality? Our promised liberty, and justice, and power, and peace, and freedom, and safety, and integrity, and acceptance, and kindness?

 

Where has it gone?