Open Season

This is the path forward because, as Americans, we must come together to destroy racism or racism will destroy America.

Only justice—applied to all—will heal what ails us.

Black and brown people need to join environmental advocacy groups and raise awareness about toxic dumping in poor parts of town, which often disproportionately affects minorities.

The first time that police and Black and brown youth meet should not be a negative life or death encounter.

I declare it is easier to prevent young people from going into the criminal justice system than to reform the system.

It is evident that the Constitution, written in 1787, was not intended to apply to everybody in America at that time—certainly not to Black people, not to Native Americans, not to transgender people, not to gays and lesbians, and not even to women.

t’s time we recognize that the boogeyman of discrimination doesn’t always wear a white hood. Most discrimination is motivated by the prospect of economic gain or the fear of economic loss. There always will be financial reasons that motivate and allow discrimination in America, as there were from the very beginning, when the framers of the Constitution argued over how to balance the moral evils of slavery with the merits of its financial gains.

I believe this was an acknowledgment by our founding fathers that the United States was not a perfect nation and the Constitution was not a perfect document.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights provide the backbone of American greatness, but we still have to recognize and root out fundamentally racist beliefs and discriminatory laws that have contaminated and corrupted American greatness from our nation’s birth.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are hardly guaranteed for Black and brown Americans.