Racial Injustice In America

The United States is a country that prides itself on diversity and individualism. While these ideals are very much true, often times, the pursuit of happiness and the American Dream are harder to attain for people of color or those who don’t abide by “social norms”. American policies are set in place to keep heterosexual, white males in power thus institutionalizing patriarchal, heteronormative and eurocentristic values. The tendency to view all issues from this perspective prevents the voices and experiences of minorities from entering the discussion and instead further disenfranchises them. Likewise, history tends to gloss over the exclusion and oppression of these groups along with their contributions to our society, thus maintaining the …show more content…
When European settlers first arrived on this continent, they negotiated transfers of land from the indigenous nations often in exchange for peace and protections, but as demand grew for land a resources conflict arose. Native Americans were soon slaughtered and forced off of the lands that belonged to them. Capitalist greed spread all over America, and these lands were soon transformed into anything that could be exploited for money. Conflict over natural resources have caused extreme loss of life for both human and animal, and the pollution of our planet to such a degree that most of the damage is now irreversible. Native Americans believe that it is their duty to protect the natural land and respect all forms of life that live on it. Fast forward to today, and they are still fighting for what they believe …show more content…
Information circulated that reported that land as not protected by historic preservation laws and attributed the Sioux rebellion as being tied to money. The pipeline itself was described as running nowhere near the Sioux’s water supply and guaranteed to not leak or cause any serious harm if it ever did, despite the fact that the project was rerouted from its original location because of concerns that it would contaminate the water supply to Bismarck, the state capital and there were a handful of pipeline malfunctions reported during the past several months, most likely underreported by the same media that continues to avoid addressing the DAPL conflict. When hired security and riot police released attack dogs on the protesters, it is safe to assume they never expected word to get out on their human rights violations as there were no television crews present, but video and image sharing websites like Twitter and Facebook allowed for water protectors to instantly share their stories (Karamat and Farooq