"Imagine for a just a moment, if you will, that the slaves who were brought to America weren't dark-skinned. Instead, white people and black people were both the same neutral skin color." Would the history of the world be different? Better yet, would Americans act differently? Unfortunately, we will never know. This intriguing quote by Aaron Powell really sparks a fire in me and gets my thoughts turning. Tracing back to many decades ago, racism was born and began to thrive throughout America, starting with slaves. The pain and suffering that minorities had to go through was endless, and for that I feel an overload of guilt, just as many others did as well. In an effort to end racism, people of power have implemented many policies including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments. Although these policies aren't as necessary now as they were back then, many policies regarding minorities and minority treatment are still around today, one policy being affirmative action. The well renowned professor of law at Yale, Peter Schuck described affirmative action as "A program in which people who control access to important social resources offer preferential access to those resources for particular groups that they think need special treatment" (Schuck 5.) Despite the efforts of employing affirmative action to promote racial equality and opportunity, as well as further the success of minorities, it is straying away from the principles in the constitution and causing stigmatization among minorities, while also creating more discrimination by doing so. .
"We hold these truth to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." As we all well know, this famous quote comes from the constitution.
