My Photo Assignment - Racism as Reported by News Media

"Human Rights for the Palestinians"

"Hold Law Enforcement Accountable"

    One of the parts of popular culture is the news.  Most of the news now deals with racism or human rights violations within our own borders or overseas.  So, with this project, I thought, “What could be better than asking three people that I know from an organization on campus to write on a whiteboard in a room where we were meeting and asking them what social justice they want rectified?” That’s the thinking I went into when starting this thing out.  So, on Thursday (March 26), I had three members of an organization called Young Americans for Liberty write on the whiteboard in big legible letters what social issue they wanted rectified.  After careful analysis of all three photos, I realized that all three photos share a common theme: the theme of racism. Racism hasn’t really gone away.  Sure, there has been legislation that has been passed and rectified in the United States like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but the issue of racism has only accelerated to a fever pitch in recent years, more so in the past year than in years previous.

"Racism"

     Things like #BlackLivesMatter and #AllLivesMatter in relation to the overall theme of racism is quite evident.  These movements have only started since last summer when Michael Brown was gunned down in Ferguson, Missouri. It has only accelerated since with the recent gunning down of University of Wisconsin-Madison student earlier this month. However, we must be vigilant of the human rights violations that are happening overseas as well.  As you can see by the first photo, my colleague wrote on the board, “human rights for the Palestinians.”  Indeed, the country of Israel in recent years has committed numerous human rights violations in relation to how much destruction the Palestinians have caused Israel.  I know that these three volunteers are libertarians – or at the very least on the cusp of being libertarian –and they usually don’t think of social issues, but at least they wrote on the board a common theme that pertains to this class.  The social issue of racism in our society and abroad is not going to go away any time soon, but with careful and respectful protestations (not like the ones in Ferguson, sorry to say) and careful manipulation of our legislators, we can bring an end to the issue of racism.