While American has taken many wonderful strides towards a more plural society, a more accepting society, and a true melting pot society, in which we must credit those people and those institutions that have promoted such, there is still, significantly too often a great divide between those that have simply because of the color of their skin as compared to others for are held back for the same. While it may be said, that all non-Caucasian and non-Christian peoples of America have suffered at some point and for some time from prejudice and unfairness, the vast majority of those suffering from such, entered this country implicitly, if not explicitly voluntarily, whereas for those that are African-American and have history that dates back to antebellum times, came here mostly as slaves, in which, in this land of America, the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, as stated by the hand of Chief Justice Taney that the black man was, "….so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…"
It took a bloody civil war, a great President, dedicated sacrifice, as well as an Emancipation Proclamation, which, in turn was followed by the important and critical passage of the 13th-15h Amendments that finally abolished the abominable institution of slavery, provided equal protection under the law for all races, and the enfranchisement of voting for all races. Unfortunately, there are words, there are laws, and there are the results of such in real application, in which, especially in the defeated southern states, things went back to the norm, which meant that blacks although not legally enslaved, were in many cases, for all practicalities, still in servitude with little rights that any white man of the street need respect, and an uneven and often aborted experience in expressing their suffrage at the ballot box.
As time moved on, progress was made for true civil rights here and there, helped by our activity in fighting wars abroad with soldiers of all colors, helped by the courts, helped by progressives of all races and creeds, helped by the initiatives of activist people that suffered indignities and injustices for their assertion of basic Constitutional rights, in which, slowly and inexorably, progress was accomplished. Yet, despite pockets of real merit, pockets of fairness, pockets of courtesy, pockets of consideration, the legacy of slavery still lives on and is obvious in its effects which is clear to anyone of reasonable perception.
For instance, on virtually every possible meaningful metric, those that come from a legacy of slavery, still suffer for it, from education, from housing, from well being, from healthcare, from opportunity, from policing, from justice, from wealth, from perception, from segregation, from separation, and from freedom. Too often in America, there are still two distinct worlds, separate and unequal, in which the crime that has been committed by those that lack, is simply the color of their skin, nothing more, and nothing less.
America compels African-Americans to pay their fair share, to obey the law, to pay their taxes as if they are equal, but treats them in application as if they are not; America, too often, demonstrates its hypocrisy in large things and small, in which African-Americans again and again, are discriminated against, explicitly and implicitly by a government of the people that is supposed to treat all with equality, justice, and fairness. Too often the poetic words that America speaks so elegantly for are meaningless, as the results prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, that African-Americans consistently have their dreams, their hopes, and their desires, crushed by the oppressive hands of a government that preaches one thing and lives out something more true to its corrupt and damnable character.