Political and Social Injustice in America

Power is something that must people tend to struggle with while other want it and some, abuse it. We live in a government where power is everything. Power is defined as the ability to influence a person behavior by getting them to do what you want. Having this kind of power politically is an enormous responsibility. This is not only having the power to influence people but also inspire others to see that the decision that you’re making is within the people’s best interest. However, sometimes, people abuse their powers and exercise powers that violate the rules that is in place. In this case, I’m talking about injustice within the system.

Political injustice has been going on for such a long time with in the United States. What people neglect to realize is there are unfairness that is being put towards black individual as well as Latinos and people of minorities dissent. I say this because when you look at the news and on social media, black people or people of color are being described as thugs, drug dealers, gangsters, rapist, and so on. The 20th century is not the first century blacks and Latinos been accused of such characteristic. It has been going on since slavery times with the Jim Crow laws and black face. However, what is clearly going on now is that we are open and more exposed to cameras and video phones that instantly record what history has been doing for decades. It is now in everyone's face to see. An example of social injustice that is being broadcast at our own fingertips will be the shooting of 194 black people done by white cops in 2016 alone.

One event that happened was the shooting of 43-year-old Keith Scott; a video showing the 43-year-old killed by an police officer after he saw his stalled SUV in the middle of the road. The police reported the victim was not obeying to the rule of putting his hands up when the video shows otherwise. The year 2016 alone, we have seen back to back killing of black men and women and children like Trayvon Martin. Another video that surface was the killing of Philanda Castile who was killed in Minnesota while his fiancée was in the car video recording. These graphic images and video showed Castile bleeding to death from gunshot wounds from where the officer had shot him three times because of a busted taillight. What make a black man so frightful in the eyes of a white man? America has been an evil venomous country ever since it started with the English settlers who came into this land and took it for the Native American and declare it as their own and then go to Africa and declare the African less of a human because of his illiterate ways and took him from Africa and bring him to America and make him a slave unwillingly. What kind of power does these Americans hold?

I read a book called “Just Mercy” written by Bryan Stevenson, where the author explains his life in the city of Alabama where his grandmother was a slave in Virginia. Stevenson himself was arrested by the cop and realize the injustice treatment. He talks about how black men, women, poor people, children got maltreated and talked about how the justice system is unfair especially toward black people. Injustice against blacks and people of minorities plays a big role in our society. Stevenson explains that black was treated this way because of their skin color. The result of racism is horrible and can be lead to further issues such as separation and division amongst curtain race. This kind of treatment is upright and unfair. If slavery ended, then so should discrimination and unfairness within the United States.