Dear Next President,

What is a hate crime?, What is discrimination? According to Google, a hate crime is a crime that is motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically involving violence, and discrimination is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. Unfortunately, there are many forms of hate crimes and discrimination against many different types of people. However, I want to talk about hate crimes against “The black society” in America. In this letter I am going to address what is happening, why it is wrong, how we can stop hate crimes and discrimination against African- Americans in America, and why it is important.

What is happening? The unfortunate epidemic of hate crimes and discrimination against African- American has spread like wildfire recently over the past few years. Now don't get me wrong African Americans are not a stranger when it comes to hate crimes and discrimination. As a matter of fact to be accurate it goes as far back as 1619, the year slavery started, and that is one reason why this is a problem. Now if you fast forward to 1954, when the Civil rights movement began a series of events such as marches, protest, lunch counter sit- ins, and many more events occurred in the south because African Americans were simply tired of how they were being treated in America and many wanted to be equal and unite as one. After the civil rights movement ended in 1968 African Americans assumed that all discrimination, hate crimes, and differing rights were over. Unfortunately, a series of hate crimes have been happening in the new era of the 2000’s. The outbreak of killings by the police is one of the biggest hate crimes and forms of discrimination right now. In addition to other hate crimes that has happened recently such as on June 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina where white supremacist Dylan Roof came into a predominately African American church, prayed with them and then proceeded to massacre everyone in the building in cold blood all because they were African- Americans.

Why is it wrong? Hate crimes against African-Americans, as well as discrimination against African Americans has been happening for a very long time, and it needs to stop. African Americans live in fear of whether a traffic stop, attending Wednesday night Bible study, being a little girl singing in the choir, or whistling at a Caucasian woman because the color of their skin will oddly be the death of them. No one should live in this type of fear; that's why it's wrong. How can we stop this? The only way we can stop this, and I say we as the term united as one, together, and wholeheartedly is if we come together and pass a new law that offenders will be severely punished if they commit a hate crime and discriminate against any kind of group for any reason. I strongly believe we can come together and stop this without any violence, just unity, and peace. Why is this important?, Why does this matter? This matters because African-Americans are honestly affected by hate crimes and discrimination in many ways that they just can't change. These things shouldn't influence what we’re doing as human beings because we’re all the same. Sadly it does affect us, and everyday something is happening to an African-American for the color of their skin. If we can just fix this, so people are punished for the crimes that they commit against African Americans, whether the offenders are police, civilians, or whomever. Discrimination needs to stop, and people need to be punished for their crimes.

In conclusion, I am asking that you, please read this and understand what African Americans have endured and what we are going to continue to encounter if you do not put a stop to this by punishing those who commit hate crimes. We are honestly tired of people getting away with what they do to our community as a whole; families are hurting and being torn apart because their loved ones are being taken from them because of hate. You have the power to change this and turn this around so we don't have to worry about our lives being taken away for someone hating us because the color of our skin. “It's a terrifying thing to think you could become the next statistic”- DaShanne Stokes.

Sincerely, Tadaiha