Stopping The Hate Essay, Research Paper

Stopping the Hate

Communities are built out of many types of people. Race, color, religion, and gender are the foundations in which a community is built. These differences can cause conflicts amongst the people living in our communities, which results in issues of unfair treatment, prejudice, and hate. Once people recognize this, people start to feel frustrated and misused. If people feel like this for a long time, resentment begins to build and people may begin to lash out at others living in the community. Whether their anger is rightly justified, damage to the community will end up inevitable. So it s extremely important that communities learn to resolve their conflicts peacefully before they grow into violence. Resolving conflicts before people are victimized is a goal every community needs to work towards.

High school can sometimes be a difficult time in a teenager s life. It s the moment in time when young adults begin to define who they are. High school is the place where teenagers learn how to express themselves and start to have different opinions than their parents. This is where I believe we should design a curriculum that students can use to stop violence. There should be programs that build on community resources by strengthening the partnership between schools and the local law enforcement. Then gender, race, and color begin taking on different meanings for them. Without programs like this, feelings of dislike can build up and violence could be the end result.

There are some basic principles that schools and youth organizations should use. They should help students develop skills that help them understand what hate crimes are and what they can do. They should also teach young kids that violence and prejudice are learned behaviors. We have the ability to change our attitudes and how we act upon them so why not teach them at a young age. At my High school, there were a few activities and assemblies that dealt with racism. I could tell that teaching students at a young age can help dramatically. It s vital to the success of

prevention and response efforts that young people understand why hate is wrong. As children

learn to recognize these hate-motivated attitudes, they will be more apt in responding to them. Children who understand that violence, threats, and harassment are unacceptable, will be more willing to assist in stopping these crimes. That indeed should be a big help. In order for schools to remain free of bias and violence, the law enforcement and strategies made must be in place. Before programs like this go into effect, we need to encourage students and the schools to take action and make a difference.

Effective preventions for hate crimes and riots that break out in schools and communities should require training. Everyone s participation is needed in order to stop these terrible crimes. It s through these trainings that strategies come about. Then people will be better educated and could possibly report more hate crimes instead of letting some go. Changing the atmosphere in schools will greatly impact our communities. Continuing to allow teachers and students to be victimized by racism is not acceptable. Our efforts from each school will be needed to effectively address prejudice and violence.

The Los Angeles riots of 1992 were devastating to the U.S. It was about seven years ago

that the Rodney King case supported the notion that America remained a deeply racist society. Ever since then, the beating of Rodney King and the devastating riots have formed a huge bomb on what we say about racism. We need to act now to prevent this from ever occurring again.

Hate, prejudice, and violence are in every city and town in America. Racism hurts everyone it comes in contact with and the damage it causes can be very devastating. Hate crimes in this country are on the rise and the problem continues to get worse everyday due to racism, etc. Law enforcement agencies can only do so much on their own to combat the problem of racism. Police need the support and assistance from all those who live in the community. Every person has the same opportunity to grow and strive for success. With the programs that I suggested above, together we could narrow the gap of violence committed in our community.