Dear Next President,

     I’m writing to inform you that Americans should be treated equally. People may be different, but they’re still human and have the same rights. A person’s race and gender has nothing to do with how s/he is portrayed within the society. It’s not as if the person has the choice between his/her race and gender, so it seems completely astonishing that people are unfairly treated due to qualities that they couldn’t control to begin with. People are born this way; they shouldn’t have to suffer from the agony of inequality.

     Since everyone is human, everyone should have the same rights as others. It doesn’t seem quite fair if a girl is doing all of this work and receiving little to no pay, but when a guy does the same amount of work he would receive a much higher pay.

     Back in the old times, it was grueling for people to maintain a well-flourished environment and economy. This was mainly due to enslavement where there were slaves(black) and slave masters(white).The slaves would work as much as 13 hours a day, yet they wouldn’t be paid even a penny. They would do as their master commands. As a result, people then started assuming that whites are of higher authority than them, meaning that they commit zero violence and it is the blacks who would be portrayed as the “bad guys”. In addition, not too long ago a young teen named Michael Brown was shot for playing with a bb gun. Research says that the officer had shot him because he thought it was a real gun. It was clear as to why he thought that: blacks are known to commit the most violence.

     Our nation's justice system is also so quick to strictly sentence convicts of mild crimes, but for peculiar reasons reduce or eliminate sentencing for harsher crimes where the convicts are seemingly part of the upper class of society. For example, in 2011, ABC News reported on an incident where an African-American mother was convicted of lying on a school application in order to get her children a better education. They fined her with the tuition, which she was unable to pay. Because of this, they gave her 10 days in jail, 3 years of probation, and community service. That’s a lot in my opinion. A few years later in 2014, reported on by NBC, officer Darren Wilson would be not indicted for the crime of murdering an unarmed Black child. Not indicted at all, for murder, versus severe punishment for attempting to improve your child’s education. The difference is drastic. Looking at situations like these, I think it's imperative we have prioritized crimes with subsequent punishments that reflects this for every case.

     In conclusion, if America is going to coin itself as a place of equality, then we need to treat all citizens the same. That starts with you President, making this issue known and affecting change on it. We first must make sure that harsher crimes have harsher punishments, and that we reduce sentencing for light weight issues. Then we must make sure that when sentencing for a same crime, the convict is sentenced the same way. In this way, the nation’s legal justice system will hold up to the American principles of justice and equality.

Sincerely,

Syed 

Sources:

1.http://abcnews.go.com/US/ohio-mom-jailed-sending-kids-school-district/story?id=12763654

2.http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/ferguson-cop-darren-wilson-not-indicted-shooting-michael-brown-n255391