In the past few years, calls for more attention toward racism have dramatically increased. People are turning their attention toward the government, mostly on social media, crying for help. For some reason, they think that the government can fix racism.
Newsflash: it can’t.
To those who think the government can help, every law that can be made against racism has already been put into place. Americans cannot be discriminatory when hiring or firing someone. We cannot harm or murder anyone based on their ethnicity or skin color. We cannot “own” people and abuse them for work or for little pay. All Americans can vote, own a business, have any job you want, marry anyone of any color you want, and go to any school we want. The legal racism fight has already been accomplished.
It is not illegal, however, to have racist thoughts or feelings. We cannot jail people for what they think or feel, because how could we know for certain? Unless people act those unfortunate thoughts, there is nothing a person – especially the government – can do. If the government made it illegal to be racist, then we would have to be monitored every second of every day, making sure our thoughts were all pure and holy. Unless you’re God, that is something that cannot be done.
People tweet and post and shout “help!” at the government to “do something!” all while they sit behind their computers. What laws do you want the government to pass? There are so many things that people still do that are illegal, from not wearing a seat belt to driving drunk. If you think that a law or the government can change a person’s racist heart or mentality, you are dead wrong.
People have to stop blaming everything about racism on the government’s “failure” to act on it. Start looking at the source. A racist’s heart and mind are broken, and 9 times out of 10 cannot be changed by a law. In fact, sometimes, it won’t even be changed by talking to the person. Racism will never cease to exist. It’s inevitable and a hard fact to swallow, but racism will forever be around us. It’s a sad world we live in that people dislike others because of their skin, but the only thing we can do to maybe improve it is love, not law.
Amy G
CONTRIBUTOR
Amy can't wait for the day when she has a big house in Texas, 7 well-dressed kids, 3 dogs, her high school sweetheart as her husband, and a job that allows her to write to her heart's content, wear Lilly and accessorize with Kate. Sophomore at SEMO with a double major and double minor.
