"Those who forget history are destined to repeat
it."
In World War II, Adolf Hitler claimed Jews were not human
beings. He brutally massacred them in The Holocaust. He sent them to
concentration camps and committed horrendous crimes against them – unspeakable things.
He tore their families apart.
Not too long ago in our American history, we claimed blacks
were not people and treated them as property - or worse - similar to what
Hitler did to the Jews.
In the recent book-turned-movie, The Help, we get a better taste of how white people treated black
people. And look how far we’ve come – we had the Civil Rights movement, led by
people like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. We’ve come a long way. While
we still deal with racism, people of different color and creed are treated as
equals now.
This movie was celebrated by critics. People who know the
story agree it’s good. People know that it’s unjust to claim that other people
are not human.
We’re American. We’re all about equality.
Or are we?
We have a new Holocaust on our hands, another claim of
inequality, another horrendous injustice. By our votes, we legalized killing
innocent babies in the womb, which is supposed to be the safest place.
We claim they are not people, and have no right to life -
it's their mother's choice, not theirs. And they don't even have a voice to
speak up and say they want to live. They can't even scream.
Yet, science proves they have a heartbeat only a couple
weeks after conception. At the moment of conception, they have the 46
chromosomes that make up a human person. Scientifically, they are persons.
So is there any good reason
for killing an innocent child? Inconvenience, maybe? Grow up and take
responsibility for your actions. How about rape? Does the crime of rape make it
okay to commit another crime of murder? It’s not the child’s fault.
When will we learn? How many more lives need to be claimed
in the name of inconvenience, or “because of certain circumstances”?
We were born into the beautiful community of humanity – we are
all equal and we are supposed to look out for each other, especially the innocent and those who cannot speak for themselves.
Who are we to say they have no right to life? If we do, that
makes us no different from Hitler. If you say, “It’s her choice, not mine”, it’s
no different than saying, “It’s Hitler’s choice, not mine”.
This kind of inequality is no different than a racist view –
it’s worse. It’s threatening the entire human race, not just one kind.
We have blood on our hands, America. If we want to make a
change, stop sitting on the fence and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
And it can be done. In The
Help, Skeeter did something about the injustice she saw. One of my favorite
scenes is where Skeeter’s mother tells her how proud she is of her daughter,
that she had the courage to go against the tide, take a stand for what’s right
and write the book. “Sometimes courage skips a generation,” she says.
I decided that I will be that generation that says, “Enough
is enough”.
I will not be silent. I will not be apart of our culture of
death, apart of those who stand by idly and watch innocent lives die. I will
not be claimed or owned by the world, who repeats its mistakes over and over. I
will fight for life, even if it means losing my own.
