Civil Rights

By: Dylan M. Brown

The dictionary describes civil rights as the right to full legal, social, and economic equality. Equality. The dictionary describes it as a state or quality of being equal or the same. For generations, people have protested that everyone should be treated equally no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or religion. They demanded that they should all be treated the same. However we may have achieved something very close, many would still argue that we do not have equality. Maybe it isn’t because it hasn't been granted to us. People cannot be forced to treat someone equally because someone tells them to do it. In order to receive true equality, everyone must believe that other people are just as important, special, complex, smart, and extraordinary as themselves. Now how could we do that? Equality is like trust. It’s a two way street. If everyone were to treat everyone the same way they would treat themselves it would be possible to achieve complete equality. Like the bible says: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” - Luke 6, 31 NIV. With this in mind, I know that one person isn’t going to grant equality for everyone, but if everyone tried, equality could be just around the corner.