Dear Next President,

My name is Elijah Velarde Ramos and currently, a 7th grader attending Lobo School of Innovation (LSI) at Quimby Oak Middle School in the Evergreen area in San Jose, California. I am writing this letter to bring your attention to what’s been going on in our country. Based on what I’ve been seeing in the past few years of my life, I’ve noticed that people are treated unfairly just because of the color of their skin. Based on genetics, every race has a different type of color on their skin, it is called melanin. It is unfortunate that it is because of melanin that people of color have a huge and a bad perspective on life.

Since the mid-1950’s, Racial Segregation and Discrimination has existed in the U.S.A. According to youthforhumanrights.org, Martin Luther King was a big civil rights activate trying to make a difference in the world. “Born in Atlanta, Georgia, King’s exceptional oratorical skills and personal courage first attracted national attention in 1955, when he and other civil rights activists were arrested after leading a boycott of a Montgomery, Alabama, transportation company which required nonwhites to surrender their seats to whites, and stand or sit at the back of the bus.” Based on what my grandparents experience, they noticed that black people weren’t allowed to do what white people could. For example, they saw 2 water fountains. One was shiny and clean. The other one was old, rusty, and broken. The shiny water fountain was for the whites, and the old water fountain was for the black people. The whites had bigger and better privileges than blacks did. In 1955, a woman named Rosa Parks was on a bus trying to go home from work. She sat down on a “good seat” on the bus (like I said earlier, white people had more benefits than blacks) and a white person came up to her and told her to stand up and find another seat since she was black. Rosa replied, “No, I’m tired from work, I won’t give it up.” She kept refusing until she got arrested and brought to court. Rosa ended up having a fine and jail time.

It is extremely disappointing because this is still going on. In modern society today, even some well-known people are spreading racism. For example, Mr. Trump said many rude comments about others. According to himself, he is “the least racist person you will ever meet.” He’s using racial slurs and stereotypes about other people, and thinking the same for everyone else. He wants to build a wall between Mexico, and the U.S.A. so that they would not be able to come here. Since we can’t permanently stop racism, I have a few solutions in mind to help reduce it. Some of the solutions are to have rallies for a state. In the rally, we could have some people give motivational speeches, or have big discussions on how we can build up peace for the world, and have respect for one another.

I believe people are born equally with the same amount of rights. Everyone deserves to be respected and treated fairly. How can we as human beings create peace and order to help the next generation? The world is already a terrible and scary place. If we do not act now, imagine how much worse that will be? Furthermore, we need to ponder more on the golden rule: “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” If the golden rule is adapted to our lifestyle, the world will become a peaceful dwelling place to live in without worries, disagreements, hatred, and retaliation. To end this off on a good note: "Education is important because, first of all, people need to know that discrimination still exists. It is still real in the workplace, and we should not take that for granted." A great quote by Alexis Herman. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours,

Elijah Velarde Ramos

San Jose, California