Dear Next President,

Racial inequality and injustice has been going on for many years, and people in America have seen no change from this clear problem. Racial inequality and injustice is when people are denied rights or an opportunity because of their race or racial background. Since before 1619 when the first African American were sold off into slavery in the 17th century to now when racial inequality is still happening in the 21st century. Only forty-two years ago the voting act was passed, so people of color could vote for someone who would represent and protect them as a whole. This is a well known problem that instead of getting better seems to be getting worse.

Some causes of this issue are stereotypes. To me stereotypes are one of the biggest driving forces for inequality in the world. Stereotypes have been used since the early 1900s and now long after slavery they are still used commonly in today’s society. Most stereotypes are used to try and discriminate and dehumanize people who are not like you. Stereotypes are images or an idea of a particular type of person or thing. In New York alone 80% of people who get pulled over are either African American or Hispanic, and 85% of the people get frisked. Only 8% of people stopped are white. In many ways stereotypes are harmful to people because experiencing chronic racial discrimination can hurt your mental health. To me it is really confusing when people say that there is nothing wrong with how non-whites are being treated in the world. I do not really expect anyone to understand, but right now I am stating that it is a shame that I have to be on guard at all times, and I have to surrender a part of me so that I do not end up like the 990 people killed in 2015 and 706 people and counting killed in 2016.

One perspective of this problem is that there is no issue, people do not see anything wrong and do not understand what people go through everyday. The other side of the argument is that there is a big problem that has been going on for years and has never truly been addressed to the point where something has been changed. Since before 1619 when the first African American were sold off into slavery in the 17th century, and now when racial inequality is still happening in the 21st century. Only forty-two years ago the voting act was passed, so people of color could vote for someone who would represent and protect them as a whole. My stance in this is that I am a young African American female that knows her history. History is a great thing especially if you understand where the world was and where we are now. Knowing this, I can say that we have not gotten to where we need to be especially with this problem. And every time I see another person getting killed and not seeing any justice from, it just makes me think that, that could be me or you. What I really want is when I have children I do not want them to be affected when housing, education, income, employment, and health care by the color of their skin. I know this will not fully go away, but can we please see some justice in America that we can all be happy about.