We need to do better

I was in 6^th grade when I first truly learned about the atrocities of World War II. My reading teacher, Mrs. Rose a woman who normally bared a huge smile was somber and quiet when we read about The Holocaust. She told us how people didn’t believe it actually happened, how people went on into the world and refused that these crimes against humanity were taking place. I was shocked that people were letting these crimes happen and obediently following along. People had begun to turn a blind eye to their neighbor.  I couldn’t fathom how people went about their lives knowing others were dehumanized. I couldn’t even grasp the idea how there were men and women who believed that those camps were good, or chose to work for them. They felt justified in their hate. 

But today? Today I sit here, and I can see it again. This time it isn’t a teacher telling me something that happened years ago, it’s the news telling me what’s happening in my own backyard. People are fleeing their home, their childhood, their safety for a maybe, only to be thrown away and treated less than an animal. Report after report keeps coming out about the detention centers: how these people are being treated. And we look away. We scroll past it, we skim it, but we look away. And others? Others encourage it. They say that they deserve this, that they can leave anytime they want- “just go home”. But how is a child suppose to go anywhere, when you separate them form their family. Where is a mother or father to go without their children? Where are they to go? The home they were fleeing. The certain death they face. No one wants to leave their home. No one wants to move away, no one wants to go to an unknown country, where they don’t speak the language, where they don’t have credentials, they don’t have rights. No one wants to leave until they are forced to. And those men and women who are leaving aren’t just leaving, they’re fleeing. They’re fleeing and they’re scared and shattered and breaking. We are letting people break. We are breaking people. The country that prides itself on a history of taking in immigrants, the country who boasts about the Statue of Liberty whose base reads “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”. But here we stand and not only have we locked our doors and thrown away the keys, we have taken the poor, the huddled masses, the homeless and we’ve locked them up too. We punish them, we degrade them, and we blame them. But why? Because these people dared to dream, they had a slight hope in their life, they thought they can make their tomorrow safe? They weren’t coming here for our jobs, for our homes- they were coming so they could walk down a street and not worry if they’ll make it home. They were coming so that their children can have a future. They are coming for the freedom this country supposedly promises. 

            So when you tell me, that they should just leave, that they don’t belong here; all I hear is your privilege. All I hear is your blatant discrimination because you have decided that you are better than them. But who are you and I decide who is better and who is not? Freedom, safety, happiness these are not privileges given to the select few or should be dependent on where you live, but rather is a basic human right. But maybe some need lesson in human rights. And maybe most of need to speak louder. Speak everyday. Don’t forget, and go on with our lives and forget that there are people in our country seeking freedom and being denied their rights. There are children separated from their families, their families being torn apart, women being abused, men being tortured all because they dream, all because they hoped. We cannot afford to look away, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. We cannot let this one slide. This isn’t a partisan issue, this question of morals. This is the time to yell, to shout, to scream for rights. Because things won’t get better until we make it better. America, it is time we do better.