Bonnie Shoultz,
Syracuse, NY.
I was a young person during the 1960s, and dreamed that this country would overcome its terrible history of oppression and enslavement of whole groups of people based on their race, culture, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class. We have made many changes, but oppression and murder of people who are not white, straight, and safe economically is still prevalent. We must continue to support bridge-building, meaningful cross-group communication, and ways of giving real help to people who would otherwise not have the chance to develop themselves educationally and economically. Our culture must change dramatically–it has changed dramatically since the 1960s but we still find that, for example, one third of African-American men will be incarcerated at least once during their lives. Systemic racism and profiling creates the conditions for this and many other ways in which people are kept down.
