I am so sad tonight. I know about all of the discriminatory and duplicity in history of the United States of America: the poor treatment of the First Americans, including the failure to abide by treaties made with these peoples and the other abysmal treatments of these peoples. Slavery. Jim Crow Laws. The incarceration of Japanese in camps during World War II. I had not heard about this one: The Deportation of Mexicans and Mexcian-Americans who were US citizens during the Great Depression http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/09/08/437579834/mass-deportation-may-sound-unlikely-but-its-happened-before. Segregation, which was separate and not equal. The violation of rights in the Patriot Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act. The incarcerations at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp.
I believe I am missing some other grievous human rights violations. I am not touching on the violations by private industry over the years.
So, this is so sad that the United States has such a checkered past, yet sets itself out in the international community as a "holier than thou" nation. It is not wrong that we are, as a nation, helping other peoples and other nations to improve their human rights records. But shouldn't we be doing it from a "learn from us" stance in learn from our mistakes? vs. This is how good a nation we are. Because, frankly, we are not.
The current unrest and animosity between citizens and police is a perfect example of that: People are being killed when in the custody or in contention with law enforcement professionals under questionable circumstances. Law enforcement officials are being ambushed simply because they are law enforcement officials. I think this country is embroiled in a war of right vs. might. No clearly defined lines. No us against them, because the lines change depending upon the circumstances. Who is right? Who has the might? Who is Us? Who is Them?
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