Civil Rights Movement Dbq

Improved Essays
It’s common practice in the human brain to view people and things that are familiar to them as superior. But that does not justify the condemning of others who are viewed as “lesser” people. Specific groups in America have been targeted because of their differences since the formation of the United States. These groups are called out for their variance from norms and are physically and emotionally attacked for their differences. Groups such as women who make up fifty percent of the population in the United States remain oppressed by structures that were put in place hundreds of years ago. If demographics as large as women can be looked down upon, than it’s easy to see the definite oppression in groups of different races or groups like the …show more content…
Almost every day, a story will be published regarding a cop shooting a person of color due to preconceived notions and stereotypes that they are bad people. The United States was founded on the belief that all people will be “protected by the equal laws of a common government,” (Document 1). These words have not been held true since being written in 1796. In the time between then and now, there have been slaves, the civil rights movement, and the Black Lives Matter organization. In the two hundred and twenty-two years since the nation founded itself on the basis of equality, there have been many movements and even a war revolving around the human rights of people of …show more content…
Rights that everyone deserve like the right to love, “marry and to found a family…” (Document 5). Not only are rights in the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community violated by degradation from fellow citizens, but by laws that the government pass as a way to forbid this community from accessing something as benevolent as adopting a child, or as simple as using a bathroom. Laws across the country have been passed that prohibit people who identify as “transgender” from using the bathroom that they identify with. These laws state that people must use the bathroom of the sex that is present on the birth certificate. This means that these laws express a problem with someone presenting their identity. Many communities face discrimination from other people however, others face this in the form of laws against them. A person’s identity should not be illegal, because “all people are born free and equal” (Document 5). If an identity is illegal, every human right is

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Police brutality against minorities is a big issue in the United States, and there is almost an incident a day in America. Police have an immense amount of power that they can tap into, but some offices do abuse that power. By doing this, there are often incidences almost weekly where police use excessive and sometimes deadly. The one big detail that everyone has missed is that most of the victims of police brutality are minorities. These occurrences have gotten so bad that there have been riots in cities such as Los Angeles, Detroit, Baltimore and Ferguson.…

    • 1698 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Black Lives Matter” Movement & Police Brutality As much as the subjects of “Black Lives Matter” and police brutality are getting stale and cliché, unfortunately it is still an issue that will not be corrected by hushed complaints and sweeping under the rug. However, this problem is not brand new; it has only escalated. Racial discrimination began in the times of slavery and has been an issue since—well forever. The discrimination has been toughest on minorities—like the African-American community. Along with the racial discrimination from society itself, some police and law enforcement figures have often abused their power and taken advantage of their place in the majority race.…

    • 1106 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before I set out on my journey of acquiring more information about systemic racism prevalent in our nation today, I often fell into the trap of not believing racism existed today since the actions I associated with racism, like the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement in the ‘60s, did not occur anymore, to my limited knowledge. It wasn’t until the shootings of Trayvon Martin and later, Michael Brown that I began to seriously consider the topic of race in America. I can admit that I had a lot of push back in my mind to the idea of police brutality and profiling of people of color, in particular, African-American men. I used to strictly abide by societal rules, so if someone broke the law or was up to nefarious activities, then they deserved to be punished. But the concept of killing a person who was unarmed really forced me to reevaluate my beliefs over race and racism.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Discrimination in the Justice System August 9th began as any other day for young Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri. Little did he know that walking down the street would end his life in just a blink of an eye. Officer Darren Wilson, who ruined the Brown family and took an innocent life by mistake, will not suffer nor be punished. It is moments like these when society must come to realize the obvious discrimination in the justice system. African Americans, especially, but minorities of all color and ethnicity, have been victim to endless amounts of prejudice.…

    • 1998 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Racial profiling has connections in law enforcement and the community causing biased factors in which can result in problematic factors on both sides. In law enforcement each individual officer to have their own part of racism. There has been arguments throughout the media and articles complaining their own side of the story of how an individual being the opposite race to the officer has been treated poorly and severely. Racial profiling is not something new that is happening now thus, it has been around since the early 1700s. Not only is this making law enforcement look bad but, for a community to not have a relationship to an officer again within the help for a community.…

    • 1607 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Tobin's Ruling

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Rhetorical Strategies in Tobin’s “What’s Missing from the Anti-Trans Ruling?” America is a country in which every man is created equal; but what about the young men and women who may not identify as the gender they were born with? Harper Jean Tobin is an advocate for transgender teens who as of right now, are not being treated as equals by law. Tobin’s article starts with a brief summary on district judge Reed O’Connor’s most recent injunction on the federal government’s allowance of bathrooms in high school being available to all gender identities.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Meanwhile in the US, White Americans were facing a similar issue. Their national identity was also being challenged through the civil rights. Before ‘White Americans’ were the dominant race, however the civils rights movements saw the rise of ‘Black Nationalism’. Black Nationalism was the African-American community showing that they were citizens of the USA in the same context to White Americans (Foner & Garraty, 1991). This was done through various marches, demonstrations and speeches.…

    • 100 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For transgender Americans, the fight for equality is not over. While the recent changes in laws affecting LGBT individuals have done a great deal to improve the situation, the fact remains that a portion of the population is still denied the most basic of human rights. Something as simple as using the bathroom has become the new battleground for civil rights, as many states attempt to pass laws that restrict bathroom usage to the gender on someone’s birth certificate. While the number of transgender Americans seems small at an estimated 0.3 percent, this is still a significant number of people who are unable to feel comfortable using a public bathroom (Wong). Not only is avoiding the bathroom a health risk, forcing transgender Americans to use the bathroom of the biological gender has led to verbal harassment and physical violence.…

    • 1716 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “I have a dream” rings a bell? This speech was given by Martin Luther King. It was delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. It was part of the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil RIghts Movements was to try to overturn segregation.…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, life in America for African Americans was harsh. On paper, it seemed as if they were equal when in reality they were very much as segregated as they were during the founding times of the United States and just as unequal. Following the Civil Rights Movement, times appear to have changed for the better. However, have we truly reached racial equality in the country? In society?…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cause Of Death: The Police

    • 2014 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Cause of Death: The Police Despite a number of movements to lessen the effects of racism in America, it is still a hot topic in the news today, especially in light of many recent shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers. Correspondingly, this leads many to questions of whether or not the police can really be trusted to protect our rights, or are they targeting non-whites as the criminals? Today, police brutality against unarmed african americans is an increasing problem in the United States because of racial stigma within police agencies, leading to the disruption of communities nationwide with racial rioting for justice, along with leaving officers in fear for their lives, but there is a solution to this issue which with a…

    • 2014 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Yes I’m Black Mankind has been around for thousands of years, and yet, as the world moves forward, certain things have not changed. Since the slave trade forcefully brought African slaves from Africa to America many centuries ago, America manages to still continue to oppress and cast down African Americans in the eyes of the majority within America. As time continued, black people from different countries began to file into America. From being attacked with water hoses to being sent to jail for petty crimes, black people have always had the short end of the stick. In today’s day and age, America claims to be all for equality and “liberty and justice for all,” but this liberty and justice cannot be fulfilled until the fear of being beaten and killed in front of your loved ones by the police disperses.…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Transgender Bathroom Laws

    • 1884 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Transgender Bathroom Laws The United States has been determined for its citizens to have equal rights given for every citizen no matter race, skin color, sexual orientation, religion, and gender identity. Although with the United States’s determination, a few complications stand in the way for a certain group of people in order for them to get the rights someone like you and I would have. This group of people, known as transgenders, have recently been targeted for wanting to use the bathroom of their preference. A person like you…

    • 1884 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The use of the phrases “all lives matter” to pay no heed to “black lives matter” are beyond ignorant to the real problem. When the president says God bless America, Should he not say God bless all the other countries as well. When the first slave ships were transporting slave ships in the sixteenth century, black lives did not matter. The true meaning of black lives matter does not suggest that all lives are not precious, but it does reaffirming that we are still alive and breathing, and we would still like to be recognize as human beings. According to the Marshall Project, police have shot and killed a young black man (ages eighteen to twenty-nine) — such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — one hundred seventy times since January two thousand fifteen.…

    • 955 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In recent years, people have witnessed the fight for equal rights in the LGBT community. As recently as the summer of 2015, the Supreme Court ruled for the legalization of same sex marriage in every state. Although that was a milestone in today’s society, there is still more to accomplish. Multiple people would argue that transgender people have enough rights and that they should not be provided anymore. What people are unable to see is the discrimination that transgender people go through in every part of their life.…

    • 1281 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays