Dear Future President,

It's the small things that can effect someone the most. The dirty looks, the backtalk, the small gestures--and they can extend to something much bigger. Then there are the big things, which extend to catastrophe. The police brutality, the riots, the utter hate for different races and sexes--these big things have been taking a rise, leaving parts of our country in utter chaos. These problems will not stop unless you do something about it. From what I've seen, the East has experienced most of this trouble, and I guess I'm lucky to be here in California. I am not living around an area where the brutality, racism, and sexism plays a role. I have only experienced the small gestures. However, in the East I see no clear end to it, and it is extending to the point of chaos.

The most violent ways I've seen this kind of racism and discrimination is through the police, which is not a new issue we are hearing about, but it is rising by the second, and it needs to stop. The first time I heard police brutality was about a year ago coming from Baltimore, which is a center for police violence at the moment. This was from the death of 25 year old Freddie Gray who died in police custody a week after being unfairly arrested. His death was due to being brutalized by police officers, who were charged. Soon after that more police brutality reports showed up in a rapid fire. Since February, there has been a 57 percent increase in police killings of black people in the US, with black people 3 times more likely to be brutalized than another race. There was even a point in time where every 32 hours a black person would be killed by a policeman. Baltimore in particular is 63 percent African American, yet 84 percent of the police stops are black people too. 95 percent of 410 individuals were unjustly stopped in a five and a half year period, and in that period they stopped 34 black residents 20 times each and 7 of them 30 times or more. Other races were only stopped 12 times each, and going into it more intimately the Baltimore arrest template literally has black man automatically imprinted. This has to be stopped.

The worse thing is that the police, who were known to protect and serve, have their reputation completely shattered. People now seem to look down on them and judge them for whatever they do. Some people are hellbent in exposing the police or foiling their operations. That really sucks thinking that there are many good police out there, and they've had their own discrimination from the people they are trying to protect. There's a flip side to all of this and it isn't  to think that many people aren't inspecting this flip side. Not all police are bad, but that's how they look these days.

Now let's move away from racism and focus on sexism. Women in today's society have vastly improved than a century ago, and that's a great thing. Our country is in a much better place because of the changes made in the past years. However, as I said before, it's those small things.  There's no doubt that sexism is still a prominent part in today's society, especially in today's workplace. Women have been discriminated in a lot of job types with things like lower pay, but maybe getting the same amount as work as the men in the same position, and their overall treatment from coworkers isn't much better. I'm really happy that I have a mom who is a strong woman and in a leading position at her work with coworkers that respect her. It's extremely hard to do that in this world. There are so many women that are not getting the kind of respect and treatment they deserve in both the workplace, the household, and the outside world, and while there have been improvements, it isn't fixed yet.

In conclusion, I understand that it would be hard to vanquish discrimination from this country. I mean, you can't stop what's part of human nature. It'll always be around here. I believe, however, that you'll be able to take away a lot of the discrimination in our country, and maybe somewhere in the future, we can be free of the chaos that plagues our country right now.

From,

Siddarth R.