Is There Liberty and Justice for All

   The Statue of Liberty stands in the New York harbor, and it ’s suppose to mean something, it is supposedly a symbol of a country that stands against oppression, prejudice, and hatred. It is also an open invitation to the oppressed, and abused of the world to come to a place where they would be welcome, embraced, and safe, but is that truth or false advertising?  The American government has taken a stand that it will not tolerate atrocities against mankind, but what America stands against, it has and continues to be guilty of. There are many who would look at what I am writing and stereotype me as anti-american, but what they fail to realize is that the American government is not the poster-child for American society. The image of what America was supposed to be, and what it is now would definitely be a frightening vision of good versus evil. Let’s start with Racial Profiling.  Racial profiling came to light after one too many incidents of police brutality and harassment, and it was deemed illegal, and a violation of civil rights. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan of the police, but they are definitely not the biggest perpretrators of racial profiling. Racial profiling is just a specialized form of prejudice that attempts to use analytical techniques to determine who is a potential criminal. Rodney King was a large Black man in a little foreign car and that made him a potential criminal that resulted with him being severely beaten, but a 14 year old Laotian boy running for his life from a clean cut, Jeffrey Dahmer, and bleeding from his rectum, was looked at by the officers that came upon this situation as a lovers’ quarrel, and they left this 14 year old in the hands of a mad man. A man walks into a upscale department store, and immediately is followed by a store clerk all over the store. Every time the man turns around, the clerk is close by watching him. The man is black, wearing a jogging suit, could that be the reason the clerk is following him, or is the clerk trying to be in place to attend to the man’s need if it arises? Racial profiling is not done just by police; retail stores teach their clerks to look for certain types of people as potential shoplifters, and those certain types are usually people of color even though people of color are not even the top group in the crime stats for shoplifters. Movies also aid in feeding racial profiling. If every young black child that wore a hooded sweatshirt was a gangbanger or if every white teen that shaved his head was a white supremacist then there would be no need for racial profiling or stereotyping, because it would just be a matter of fact. Prejudice, no matter what form it takes has been behind some of the biggest atrocities committed in this country, and greed was the fuel. Social segregation not only pits black against white, it also pits upper class blacks against lower class blacks, it also pits upper class whites against lower class whites especially when it comes to our so-called justice system. This is something that I really don’t need to go into detail about, because the proof is recorded in history. Our so-called government and justice system should spend more time fixing its own flaws and make amends for its many atrocities before it trys to stand in judgement of the rest of the world. Prejudice in any form leads to atrocities, whether it be immediate or long term, and America is no different from the rest of the world, and there is no gray area between right and wrong. If you are going to point a finger at the rest of the world, remember one thing….. There are three other fingers pointing right back at you.