What Does It Mean To Say All Men Are Created Equal Essay

Many would say that America was built on the principle that “all men are created equal” and that U.S. citizens are all given equal treatment, opportunities, and so on. But, is that really the case? Was Thomas Jefferson’s famous words, forever inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, meant for everyone? Taking a look back into America’s short (at least when compared to other countries) history, the phrase “all men are created equal” doesn’t really seem to correlate with the circumstances of that century. Africans were enslaved and forced to do hard, strenuous labor or else be forced to endure a beating by the slave master. But don’t forget, all men are created equal. It says so in the constitution. Fast forward a couple of hundred years where all men still aren’t equal, but are close to it.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”. This is a precedent that was established centuries ago to tell the people of its time that there is no man lesser than another. It was set and meant to last for a very long time. Thomas Jefferson was the one who made the phrase famous, but it was his great friend Philip Mazzei who first used the saying through a letter written to Jefferson called “Joint Resolution 175 of the 103rd Congress“, which was later proposed for the United States Constitution. This same phrase Jefferson later used as the groundwork for our nation in The Declaration of Independence of 1776. It was written intending to show

In America, the land of the free, people believe that it’s the greatest place to be. And America would probably be what everyone believes, but it has a very serious problem that could eventually destroy the country as whole. America is built upon Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but it has a strong equality issue that has to be taken care of. Equality is a social contract in America and unfortunately it is a broken one. A social contract is an agreement amongst the members of a society, but equality is a serious issue. Equality poses the biggest problem to America simply because in any country the people make the country, and if the people can’t get along either internal conflicts occur, or people eventually leave. Throughout America everyone regardless of race, color, or sexual orientation has experienced inequality in some part of America. Words are exchanged, fists are thrown, and in serious cases lives are lost because people are racists to one another. Equality is a broken social contract in America that will eventually be its demise if not attended to.

“All men are created equal”, though this would be a fact of the Western World society today, it was certainly not always that way. With the beginning of slavery in the 1600s, to becoming the main cause of the Civil War and abolishment of it, here is slavery; from the Union’s point of view.

As a woman I have always thought that all men were superior to women in a society viewpoint. Black men superior to black women, Hispanic men superior to Hispanic women, and of course, white men superior to, well, all women, especially women of color, and men of color. However, when reading the article “All Men Are Not Created Equal” I had realized that Asian men are significantly inferior to Asian women in western society. I never really thought about the imbalance until just today, reading the article despite having always seen it in my day-to-day life. I really enjoyed how the author, Yen Le Espiritu, focused on the historical reason as to why Asian women are seen as more valuable in western society than Asian men. I, of course, had learned about Chinese and Japanese immigration and the Japanese internment in my high school history class, but I was never taught the societal and family issues that these events had sparked.

In recent years racial and socioeconomic differences have grown more prevalent in our society, and many wonder why. Growing up in Ethiopia, the concept of race was never popular or significant, as there was little to no racial diversity. Coming from a country where I did not even look at the color of my skin to a place where the only thing people saw was my color, astonished me. Living in the United States and learning about slavery in middle school, I thought of it as something that was long gone, something I would never have to worry about, but as I grew older I began to see the lingering shadows that remained. A petrified twelve-year-old me once asked my mother why we were moving to America and to that question she replied “America is the land of the free; the land of opportunities”. America did feel like an embodiment of her statement my first few years here but as time passed I began to see some clear differences in how society viewed me. I wondered, if this really was the so called “land of the free”, why are minorities incarcerated at a higher rate? And why are there such significant socioeconomic and educational gaps?

While driving down the road, I see a sign, “Black Lives Matter”, and I ponder on the question to myself, “what equality is there in humanity”. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”( Congress, 1776). I ask myself, at the time the Declaration of Independence was being written, did they forget to disclose the statement,” except for Black people.” The vast majority of social media sources, in 2016 have displayed the slogan, “Black Lives Matter”. I asked myself, have Black lives ever mattered in the United States of America, and what can citizens do to provide inclusion of membership for everyone. The history of the United States has shown racial disparities for over 200 years, and while the emancipation of slaves and the Civil Rights movement has shown some progression towards unity; the divide is apparent in everyday life.

America is one word that brings the hope of freedom to many people around the world. Since the United States’ humble beginnings freedom has remained at the core of its ideologies and philosophies. People of all races, nations, and tongues have found refuge in America. The National Anthem proclaims, “…land of the free, and home of the brave” (Key, 1814). But has America been consistently a land of the free? Unfortunately freedom has not always reigned. There is a constant struggle to overcome fear and prejudice in order to provide a true land of freedom. In times of heightened tension, the masses of common people seek to find a scapegoat. Often, this scapegoat is a minority

The United States of America is known as a country of independence, liberty, and rights; within the lines of our national anthem the Stars Spangled Banner, it is clear to see how the phrases "the land of the free and home of the brave", symbolize the ideals that have been centralized into the American Society for hundreds of years. Despite being recognized as a world power; for its military structure and the "believed" system of possibilities in terms of self advancement, the United States of America houses a very dark and inhumane secret; a sociological failure that perhaps is called that way, given the as a nation, we neglect, fail to address, and persecute those that because of their inherited skin color, look different than the accepted sociological norm of whiteness. It is shameful, to me at least, that the term "American" is a representation of the world 's largest incarceration rate; it’s even more shameful, how we prosecute, isolate, and declare what President Nixon once believed was the proper measure to take on poor communities; the war on drugs. For hundreds of years, we as a country have idealized with what Mustafa Emirbayer & Matthew Desmond have identified in their book Racial Domination, Racial Progress the Sociology of Race in America, as a mistake; mistake that has cost thousands of minorities their reputations and has impacted not only their tranquility, but their overall success rate in the promised land of opportunities.

In today’s time, the United States of America have drifted off its course of trying to reach a utopia. Social problems are rising for many people of color and non-color people. The problems have been illuminated in politics, education, employment, and social media. Problems such as discrimination of a certain group of people, and economic hardship are the most common issues. Reflecting back on America’s history, America has had a long history of white versus black ever since the slavery era, which took place during the time of the civil war. Ever since then, the United States have striven and persevere to change its society ethics. But, America is now slowly shifting back to a world where white supremacy and people of color are immensely separated

“Between you and me, Los Angeles is the most overrated, lousiest, countriest, phoniest city I’ve ever been in.” (Himes, 1945). While it ranges from adolescents to senior citizens, people of color are not safe in the United States. The United States is supposedly the land of the free, home of the brave. But who are the free? Who are the brave? In school, it’s indoctrinated into students that we are all free, and we should look up to those that serve and protect us, those are the brave. What if the people that are supposed protect us aren’t? Instead they are cowards hiding behind a wall of nonfactual fear.

Since the beginnings of our nation’s it has been implied that all people should be viewed as equals but the question is, are all people seen as equal? Our founding fathers wrote that all men were all one of the same. Everyone is familiar with Thomas Jefferson's famous quote," We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The passage claims that we are all equal but where is the proof that we are? It was stated in the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen, “Men are born free and remain free and of equal rights”. I do not believe that these statements apply to all of mankind. Throughout history many acts have proven otherwise. As we take a look throughout history we see

As Americans, it is our duty and responsibility to learn how to work together and accept each other’s diversity. Despite, all of us coming from a different cultural heritage, as Americans we now form and share a new common culture. America has been described as a big melting pot because our country is a place where many different cultures have come together to blend as one whole. Our shared American culture is supposed to be described as one that is built on the ideals of freedom, human equality, tolerance, and the respect for each other’s differences; all of this is what is suppose to make our nation so significant, sadly this is not the case for our nation. Throughout our American history we have learned about racial discrimination events that have taken place against African-Americans like slavery, the Civil War, the lynching and race riots caused by the Ku Klux Klan, the Jim Crow Laws and many other events; the Black Lives Matter movement has exploited these events in addition to racism, stereotypes, and the hate our country still contains within its people and the modern American society.

Matthew 5:48 was used to illustrate that God had set an impossible goal for us

We are all born the same way: as humans, and therefore deserve the same rights and acceptance as long as we all follow the laws and comply with the norms set to protect all individuals. But throughout history certain groups of people have faced discrimination, segregation, and injustice because they are of a specific race, skin color and/or culture that some of us consider to be part of a lower category of human beings, as well as the fact of holding different beliefs and ideals along with preferences when it comes to things such as gender and choice of lifestyle. My only wonder is how an individual or a society as a whole reaches the point of producing enmity towards others who do not hold the same sexual orientation as they do and how