Kaiya Hamilton

Polgar

E 14

My Dearest Grandchildren,

I am writing this letter so you can have a documented accord of the concepts I

want to talk to you about. Before I am dead and gone, I want to make sure my

descendants know where I stand on certain topics.

I was recently doing some reading, and I came across concepts made by an Eric

Yamamoto. He feels like conditions achieving racial justice are quite attainable. He

broke them down into four steps, recognition, responsibility, reconstruction, and

reparations. Recognition in this context is identifying the harm that racism causes as a

factor that effects people’s lives daily. Responsibility is the second step, recognizing that

there are people responsible for the harms racial groups endure. Reconstruction is the

step that calls for action, as recognizing the problem is one thing, taking action against

future occurrences is another. Lastly, reparations are the final step given by Yamamoto,

providing compensation for the parties wronged. I agree with these steps, but also

agree that they must all coexist and not be met with a one or the other mindset. If these

steps were taken, racial justice would be very possible.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen both progress and the opposite of it in cases of civil and

human rights. When I was in the seventh grade, gay and lesbian couples had attained

the right to legally marry. This was a big deal, as the LGBTQ+ community had to fight

for many hard years to finally get that basic right. When I was a junior in high school,

natural hair discrimination was made illegal against workers and students. I feel as
though we still have an immensely long way to go on the road of ending systematic and

interpersonal discrimination, but the passage of the crown act gave hope to a lot of

black people that steps to achieve racial justice would be made.

All throughout history, black people and other groups have been dehumanized

and privy to pejorative language that makes it easy and normalized to discriminate. This

derogatory diction pertaining to real groups of people create nonpersonal relationships

to the point where ultimately “nobody” feels like they can relate to those being

discriminated against. By objecting to all use of this disadvantageous vocabulary, the

prevalence of the stigmas surrounding these groups change greatly. In example, when

rapper DMX died the same day as Prince Philip, many were angered at news headlines

calling the Prince a “beloved royal”, but the black rapper a “brilliant but troubled”

musician. This pejorative language is not right and could have severe belittling effects

on those being described. I think it is great that even if the person being described is

unable to defend themselves, there are still people that make sure the language is

addressed and corrected.

Racial justice is immensely attainable, and even if I am unable to see it happen I

want those after me to fight for what’s right and to never let this crooked world we live in

determine their worth.

Love, Grandma