9th Grader Ayia Elsadig was the First Place winner of the Rozzie Reads One Book Youth Essay Contest
“The Future President of the United States: Racial Issues”
By Ayia Elsadig
“I had a dream,” “All men are equal,” “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in,” and “No.” Know what all of these quotes have in common? They were all said by America’s biggest figures in history who faced the utmost level of suffering just to be able to fight for one cause, the end of racial discrimination. These figures fought for years and years, until at one point everyone acknowledged and ‘came’ to terms that all races were equal, thinking this would be America’s pivotal point, foreshadowing a non racist future. Unfortunately, it was the birth to a facade that America would live under for decades. The United States is still a country, which cannot rid itself from its prejudices; this is evident in the labeling of black and Hispanic people as criminals and drug addicts and Muslims as bloodthirsty terrorists. America is currently in need of a President able to eradicate the dividers prominent in segregating races and find a way to familiarize and unify all people, color, and religion regardless.
It’s important that the future President of the United States educates his or her people about one of the most controversial and misunderstood religions of this time, Islam. The majority of Americans today have prejudices against Muslims due to their misunderstandings of the religion, and confusing it for the actions done by terrorists who claim they are Muslims. The solution could be done by creating courses for high school called, Studies in Cross Culturalism,” teaching the black, hispanic, LGBT, and Muslim perspectives. The president could also consider banning the media from only using the word terrorism when there is a ‘Muslim’ related incident and to use it also when whites themselves do terroristic acts, or they could eradicate the use of the word terrorism in whole due to the power of its meaning nowadays.
As a 14-year-old Muslim girl, I believe America doesn’t need a president like Donald Trump who posts derogatory tweets against the President just because of his skin color, or a President like Jeb Bush who thinks making Syrian refugees take a Christian test to ensure only Christians are entering the country and not ‘terrorist Muslims’ is the right thing to do, or a President like Hillary Clinton who refers to Black kids in the ghetto as ‘super predators.’ If the next President of America can help alleviate or even solve America’s current issues regarding race relations, then soon we can all live in a country where Muslim women can walk without being interrogated about terrorist tactics just because of the piece of cloth on her head, where police won’t get away with shooting a black male teenager and blame it on his clothing and labeling him as criminal and his killer as the victim practicing “self defense.” If the next president can rid of these injustices, once and for all America will turn “I had a dream,” to “We are living the dream.”
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