Division In American History

American History has been filled with countless of hardships such as wars, political division, and racial struggles. In the more recent months it seems that instead of moving forward and away from these past hardships, the country is moving backwards into a new time of division. The division is coherent with social tension and division within the political parties. If a person didn’t live through certain events, then it’s easy for them to stay in the same retrospective cycle. When looking at past events, it’s evident that there are certain ideologies that have stayed prevalent and currently, we see an evolved way that these same ideologies have manifested in modern day events. There is clear evidence that there is a historical antecedent to
For example, probably the most controversial one at the moment has to do with the movement known as Black Lives Matter, which is a campaign against the violence towards African Americans, specifically the fight against what many believe to be the justice system’s unfair targeting of African American versus Caucasian Americans. The oppression of African Americans dates back to the beginning of the reconstruction of America, specifically to the enslavement of the Africans during the 1600’s, which was when it was first introduced to North America. The end of the Civil War meant two things, the passing of the Thirteenth amendment which meant that “the nearly four million enslaved people in the South before the Civil War (American Horizons, 567)” were now able to reconstruct their lives and also the Fourteenth Amendment, which was the “constitutional amendment that guaranteed national citizenship and equality to former slaves, but offered no specific protection of freed people’s voting rights” (American Horizons, G7). Although African Americans were technically no longer considered slaves thanks to the thirteenth amendment, the fourteenth amendment had was not clear enough in outlining how African Americans were to receive equal rights when it came to political aspects, for example, voting. There were prevalent social inequalities that
The thing that one can take away from our history is that race has played a factor in the way people interact with one another and this is still being seen. The way people are being treated and criminalized just because of the color of their skin seems to be taking us back to the civil rights movement. Black people have often been associated with certain stereotypes and portrayed a certain way in the media that it has led many people to demand change. There is no way that the past has not clearly affected the way we presently live. That is the primary reason why this issue has currently caused so much controversy; America has already experienced a movement that demands change and equality among all ethnicities. America has already gone through the riots and deaths due to this issue. There have been many protests and it seems like a repeat of the civil rights movement that took place in 1960’s. It’s clear that it’s hard to be completely rid of racism and it’s also hard to be completely rid of the stereotypes created by