Equal Rights In The U.S. – Does it exist?

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
- Mr. Martin Luther King –

It's sad that Mr. King’s dream has yet to be fulfilled, for most Americans, such as the African Americans, Native Americans, Latino Americans, etc are still struggling for their equal rights.

Today African Americans have equal rights under the law, but in fact they are far from equal. Compared with whites, blacks are twice as likely to live in poverty, twice as likely to be unable to find a job, and twice as likely to die in infancy. There have always been at least two Americas, one for whites and one for blacks.

Despite the lofty claim that “all men are created equal,” equality has never been an American birthright.

Recent studies indicate that minority status is still a factor in the lending practices of some banks. A 1998 report of the U.S. Conference of Mayors indicated that, among applicants with average or slightly higher incomes relative to their community, Hispanics and African Americans were twice as likely as whites to be denied a mortgage.

Adrienne Cureton, a plainclothes police officer, who on January 2, 1995, with a uniformed partner, was called to the scene of a domestic dispute. When a struggle ensued, her partner radioed for help. When the officers arrived, Cureton and her partner had already handcuffed the homeowner. The officers barged in and mistook Cureton, an African American for the other person involved in the dispute. They grabbed her by the collar, dragged her by her hair onto the porch, and clubbed her repeatedly with flashlights, despite her screams that she was a police officer.

The realities of everyday American life are still very different for its white and black Americans. For example, a black child born in the United States has more than twice the chance of dying before reaching his or her birthday than a white child does. The difference in the infant mortality rates of whites and African Americans reflects the differences in nutrition, medical care, and education – in other words, differences in their access to the most basic resources of a modern society.

(Quoted from – The American Democracy by Thomas Patterson, Sixth Edition)

Rain