Dear Mrs./Mr. President,

There has been so many recent and past troubles with this country. So many people are getting hurt and even dying just because of the assumptions of a couple of people. It disconnects us as a community and doesn’t make this country so “great” after all. These events cause threats, death, fear, unemployment, school dropouts, and more. We need to stop judging and making incorrect assumptions towards a whole race just because a couple of people made some mistakes.

Imagine getting treated horribly all your life even though you’ve done nothing wrong. That’s how black people felt. Black people have been treated horribly for 397 years, ever since slavery started in 1619. Even though, “ The 13th Amendment, adopted late in 1865, officially abolished slavery, (slavery in America)” discrimination was still ongoing towards black lives and they were/have been treated like they weren't people at all. Whenever this topic comes up, i always wonder: “but why?” I found out that it is due to our quick stereotypical judgements towards our peers. For example, “ this Asian invented some really cool device so all Asians are smart,” or, “ those black people have guns therefore all black people are dangerous.” People need to stop judging people by how they look at start judging them by what they do.

Most of these people commit crimes because they have nothing left to live for. They have been rejected, beaten, judged, and threatened to the point where there’s no point of even trying at life. According to The Color of Crime, “ in 2015, a black person was 2.45 times more likely than a white person to be shot and killed by police. A Hispanic person was 1.21 times more likely.” This shows how badly races are judged just because of the actions of a couple of people. In fact, “ in 2014 in New York, for the crime of ‘shooting’ - defined as firing a bullet that hits someone - a black was 98.4 times more likely than a white to be arrested, and Hispanic was 23.6 times more likely (The Color of Crime).” Some people might say that the police are just trying to do their job and protect the city. While it might be true that it is better to assume that someone has a weapon than it isn’t, the police don’t have to go through such extreme measures as to kill them. I’ve also seen many situation where the black person was following the police orders and doing absolutely nothing wrong, the police still shoot and kill them.

As you can see, racism has been a problem for far too long (obviously) and even though has slowed down a lot, it is still happening in this country and NEEDS to stop. We need to turn those criminal rates for blacks and Hispanics to down below at least 10%. It took us 219 years to realize that white people were not the only ones eligible to run this country into great success. I do hope that you can change this problem from ongoing to a halt and let people realize that judging people by their skin color is horribly wrong. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Kacy S.