Racism
The other day a friend of mine got pulled over by the Port Orange Police Department (Port Orange, Florida). This in itself is not irregular, as us teenagers have a tendency to be reckless behind the wheel of a car; but neither was it or should it be considered a normal offense. He wasn't pulled over for speeding, or drinking, or even for playing his music too loud.
 He was pulled over for being black.
 My initial reaction was one of anger. The mere thought that peoples like these still exist in a supposedly modern America is enough to make me scream. The fact that it was a cop only makes things worse. Then my friend proceeded to tell me that this sort of incident had occurred on more than one occasion within his own family. At that moment the anger previously ebbing within me ceased, and I could only feel depression. I had hoped for an instant that under our new found Americanism we actually might have grown as people. It seems like that is too much to ask for.
 His story is one that resembles others that we have heard before: This friend of mine gets into his car and leaves school campus only to be pulled over by some redneck police officer who says he pulled him over because he, "Looks like a suspect." Other such comments were also uttered; all of them alluding to the verity that this particular friend of mine just happens to be black.
 As an adolescent, white male I haven't experienced racism in the extremes that a black male of the same age must go through in his every day life. And I won't pretend that I can understand what this friend of mine must have felt like when he was being questioned inside his car like some sort of criminal. I'm sure it didn't matter to the cop at all that this "black" man is the president of Chorus, an honor role student, and a dazzlingly excellent singer. I'm sure it didn't matter that he is an active and upstanding member of society.
 What frightens me is the fact that we as Americans seem to be incapable of even understanding our own ideals. Racism is alive in every state and country I have ever made a visit to and it's there because we won't get rid of it. The World Trade Center was attacked and 20% of my school was willing to lynch every one who looked like they might possibly be from Afghanistan. Racism and persecution are a par of our history- from the Salem witch trials, to the relocation of Native Americans, to the Japanese concentration camps and to the modern persecution against black Americans- and we won't ever be rid of it unless people can just start GIVING A DAMN!
 Frankly, I consider what happened to my friend to be as much an attack against America itself as it is an attack against black people. And to be more specific, I feel like this is the sort of thing that can eventually lead to a bunch of drunken racists stringing up a black man to the back of a truck and dragging him across a dirt road at 60 MPH. I have met people who have talked about doing this sort of thing in a totally serious manner. These are the sort of people that should not be in our schools or in our government. These are the sorts who need to be locked up, not a random black man trying to get home from school.

-Alan J. Kouns - February 2002