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I’d like to make a quick thread on my thoughts about police brutality and racial violence in America. Sorry if it seems a bit disorganized, I’m writing this down as I think of it.
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When I think about race relations in America, it’s best to think about it from a historical context because racial violence has happened through every era in American history, from before independence to today.
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(2/?)
For the centuries leading up to the Civil War, millions of black people were doomed to entire lives in chains, working eternally for a manipulative and inhumane system that proclaimed itself as “free”.
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In fact, it’s scary how self-aware most politicians in the north were about slavery. They knew they were being hypocritical about claiming lands in the west in the name of “freedom and justice”, only to move slaves onto the frontier.
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Reconstruction was supposed to make African-Americans and Caucasians equal, but only in their “rights”. At this time, blacks were free, but not equal. While they had they same rights and freedoms, they had less opportunities because they had the lower hand economically.
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The Bill of Rights is weird to me. It gives people protections that are integral in the legal and social systems of America. Most of them are commonly used today. But it somehow forgets the most basic human rights of all: the right to live and to equal opportunity.
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How different would life be in the USA if the 2nd amendment had as much legal ground as the right for anyone, no matter what background, to be judged equally, the right to achieve anything and come from anywhere, and the right to be safe in one’s community?
You’ve probably heard the saying, “___ is a privilege, not a right.”
How far must we go before we realize that under the current circumstances, many people are denied the most basic human rights based on the color of their skin?
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How far must we go before we realize that under the current circumstances, many people are denied the most basic human rights based on the color of their skin?
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In a hundred billion ways, the American government is in debt to the African-American community, for centuries of inhumane treatment followed by negligence and ignorance. It owes them security and opporunity, two of the most basic things one can ask of a government.
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And yet, it’s failing them by refusing to acknowledge their problems, turning a blind eye to racist acts, and giving people who condone such behavior platforms to continue their work. It’s disgusting and depressing that it has gone on for so long.
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9/?
that was 10 oof
