Name: Anthony Llanos Professor:Karen Klatzkin Date: 11/6/2013 Course: Eng 101
Racism in The UnitedStates In North America there are several laws that protect people against racism, but that’s not enough. A large percent of polices discriminate, mostly against Latinos or Blacks due to what they look like, by having laws such as stop and frisk , they mostly have all the rights to approach to any individual and frisk them. In the case of Latinos most of us are short (around 5.6 feet tall) with brown skin, dark hair and brown eyes which makes it easy for other people to recognize us. A large amount of Blacks are tall with dark skin, afro, curly hair and most of them also have angry or aggressive aspect. That’s why if a crime is committed, most of the time, justice will assume that the culprit must be a Latino or a Black person. Latinos and Blacks should have the same rights as anybody in the United States. Rights should be equally given to everyone without considering at looks. This idea reminds me of a well-known speech I read from the book The Greatest Speeches of 20th Century on page 174, third paragraph by Harvey Milk, “The Hope Speech,” in 1978 in California, where he mentioned that “If Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Gays and Italians were not critiqued by their criminals, by their myths or stereotypes the world would be a peaceful and better place to live. “Even though he caused controversy after his speech against racism, folks did not change their minds. Furthermore, I am capable to say that racism still happening everywhere specially in the subway whether a paisa(Latino brother/sister) ask for directions or orientation in how to navigate in the subway, they are not treated with respect as any other individual because of their accents, lack of English skills, small height, or looks. As a sad illustration, I witnessed a lack of a MTA employee professionalism while he was doing his job, two paisas approached to the booth where people are able to talk to the MTA employee if something goes wrong with a metro card or ask for help in how to navigate in the subway and the first thing he did was to look to his electronic device and said to them “I’m sorry, I do not understand your English , ” what I was most surprised is that the two paisas (s-plural more than two) did not even start a conversation or even ask him something and clearly he was being racist to them. I was really frustrated while witnessing that event, but the worse part is that I did not do anything about it. I think that my selfishness in getting home early won because at that moment the train was arriving at the station. When I got home, I started remembering a similar event that happen to me the first time I arrived to the United States in the same setting but different station. I was pretty lost and I
