Blog #7

Ola Omar
                                                                      Blog #7    
           The quote that I have selected for reflection #7 is from Citizenship and Social Class by T.H Marshall. The quote that I have selected for reflection #7 is "Civil rights gave legal powers whose use was drastically curtailed by class prejudice and lack of opportunity." (T.H Marshall, p. 153).
           What Marshall is trying to tell his readers is that the civil rights of U.S citizens is supposed to protect the rights of U.S citizens through the laws of the U.S constitution, but instead the civil rights gave legal powers such as the president, the congress, and the U.S government the opportunity to abuse the true meaning of the civil rights and use the civil rights to impose prejudice among Americans who are not in their class or who are not wealthy like the legal powers. Civil rights are rights that humans are entitled to by the U.S constitution without the government's interference. For example, civil rights can be the right to vote or the right to be protected by the laws of the U.S constitution.The government is in charge of enforcing the laws to be abided by the U.S citizens and enforcing consequences upon all U.S citizens who break these laws. However, instead of using the civil rights as a way to restore equality among U.S citizens in America, the government has interpreted the civil rights of U.S citizens in their own way by choosing who they want to punish and how they want to punish their people.  
           For example, the U.S government is full of either white or wealthy people and they think that they are above it all. They seem to only be imposing consequences on people who are not white or wealthy who break the law and that is not fair. We are all human beings and god made us all bleed the same color. How does the law protect black people when black people seem to be getting killed lately all because the police officers feel threatened by their skin color? I used this problem in my other blogs many times before, but I find this problem occurring a lot lately and what bothers me is that the police officers get no consequences whatsoever. All they get is a slap on the wrist. If a black person got killed once because the police thought he was armed, then, I would give the police the benefit of the doubt and say it was an accident and we all make accidents once in our life time even if we are police officers, but this is not the case. What bothers me even more is that the judge sees that these black people are dying and they keep allowing the police officers to be found innocent, so if the police officers are not found guilty, what is going to stop them from killing another innocent life again?
           The government has bestowed stereotypes among certain groups of U.S citizens that are not true and that are only causing havoc in our society. There is also a lack of opportunity for many people in this country because of these stereotypes that the government has bestowed among its people. For example, U.S citizens have the right to vote, but yet the people who they choose to represent their country are not doing a very good job in providing services for the poor or making sure that all middle class people are in a stable place. When I looked at the Total Federal Spending chart, the government only used 3% of that money towards the education of the U.S citizens. How will the younger generations make something of themselves if they do not have a good enough education. Also, 2%  of that money was used for transportation. How will people get to their schools or jobs on time when they do not have transportation to take them where they need to be? 27% of that money was used for health care and to me that is a low amount of money for the government to put towards making sure their people are healthy. The government needs to stop making sure their class is okay and start making better decisions for the sake of all of their people.
            I chose this quote because I believe that the government has not protected the rights of their people with the laws of the constitution and the quote I have selected is exactly why I think this is true. Due to the racial stigma that is placed upon people of different races, the rights of those people are not protected, which has made the opportunities available for those people very little or not the same as the wealthy people. The U.S is supposed to be the land of the free, but yet people still feel trapped or scared by the government's actions and that is why Douglas says that independence day is not for colored people to celebrate. Slavery ended, but yet racism still has a way of making America an unjust place to be in. Everyone in America has the right to vote, but yet our representatives are not representing us in an honest way and that is why Thoreau was disgusted by his government. He wanted the government to enforce the laws of the constitution without influencing a corrupt society.