Dear President,

     Congratulations on winning the elections! I am a ninth grader who has seen many situations involving racism. I hope you are just as troubled about racism as I am.

     I have a friend who gets bullied for her race. Some days, when the remarks start to sink in, she wishes she could be white or any other race other than her own. Racism drastically decreases a person’s self-esteem. It causes them to have ongoing feelings of sadness, anger, and depression. In turn, those feelings cause health problems such as headaches, increased heart rate, sweating, trembling, and muscle tension. Victims of racism have a constant fear of being verbally or physically attacked. In one very recent case, Maya Bird- Murphy, a student at Ball State University, has dealt with being singled out because of her race. According to the article, ''Racism on Campus: Stories From New York Times Readers'' by The New York Times, Maya was the one of the two only black people in her class. Maya’s class was studying William Grant Still, and the textbook had a poem made by him, which was written from the perspective of a black man in the 1920's. The professor, a Caucasian man, proceeded to then ask Maya to read the poem, in which she did, but in the way she usually speaks. The professor then said, ‘’No. Do it again. You know how it’s supposed to sound. I can’t read it because it’s not my culture.’’ My point is that we should not let racism continue; it has caused enough problems in the past and even more conflicts will then emerge if we do not stop it entirely. Racism has caused many, many divisions in the world and has torn apart families and friends. We should not ignore it, but try to stop it completely, because it’s separating not just individuals, but all of us.

     Racism is separating humanity. It picks and chooses, selects and collects the ones it thinks are the best and flings the rest into the dark. It is categorizing us based on our colors. It is breaking us into groups. We are given roles to play, whether we like it or not. No questions asked, no objections allowed. We start rising, fighting for individuality. We do not want to be stereotypes, but the division continues. Racism relentlessly rips us apart. Racism recklessly tears us to bits, not just us but our dreams of equality. Fairness is so far away, so it is becoming a forbidden wish. Now it is getting harder and harder to connect with others. Gaps are getting more and more difficult to fill and before long the spaces between us will grow so far apart until it becomes impossible to close. Racism is ruining the feeling of equality everywhere.