Race Relations: Dare to Challenge Your Stereotypes and Trace Your Genetic History

"Land of the free and home of the brave." This is America, a supposed "melting pot" of various races, ethnicities, religions, disabilities, and sexual orientations. However, it is not as harmonious as what it should be and what is symbolic in our national flag. According to a 2004 summary of hate crime statistics, over 9,000 people were victims of different types of hate crimes (www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004885.html). These crimes aren't occurrences of decades long past, they are very recent and very real.

The targeted victims of physical and sexual assault and even murder are all different races, religions, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and disabilities. Human beings are being denied everyone's basic right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because of who they are and choose to be. Why that is when we all should be allowed to live in freedom under the Constitution is incomprehensible.

Left in wake of this violence are families and friends, leaving a stain on the nation and it's basic beliefs on which this country was allegedly founded. Every adult knows those rights, children are thought them in school, and there are some penalties in place for violations, but are the few and little penalties they have for committing acts of hate enough? Can one really put an appropriate penalty on harassing, harming or killing someone because they are different or vary from what someone's idea of right is? Another problem is the fact that slurs and epitaphs are going unpunished from school age children to adults in workplaces and in the public eye.

By definition, a hate crime is (dictionary.reference.com/) "a crime, usually violent motivated by prejudice or intolerance toward a member of a gender, racial, religious, or social group. also called bias crime." The perpetrators of these acts launch assaults against not only individuals but also communities in efforts to undermine unity and peace.