America…the Land of the Free

We are all humans. Doesn’t this mean that we are all equal regardless of how we look or think? Why then, do some people think that they are better than others? I assure you that what makes you human is what is on the inside and not what is on the outside. If our skin and thoughts are taken out of the picture, we are all red. Such a philosophy compares to the one that brought about the fight for equality in the US. Such a philosophy brought about the fight for human rights in the US.
Human rights in the US are legally protected by the constitution of America. The fight for human rights came because people saw that there was no equality at all in the society. The first protection that I will talk about concerning human rights entails race.
The civil rights act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race and national origin in the workplace in a major industrialized country. This made the US the first industrialized country to enact this legislation. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that any citizen will not be blocked from voting by any state on the basis of race, color or a previous condition of servitude. This is echoed by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Just to walk the talk, the US has an anti-discrimination government enforcement body called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which as the name suggests, ensures that no one is denied the opportunity to work based on grounds of discrimination. Such programs are also applied in college admissions. Human rights in the US are so strong that Americans voted in a black president in the 2008 presidential elections.
Now let us look at gender. Women are the victims when it comes to this type of discrimination. The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids the states from denying any citizen the right to vote based on that citizen’s sex or if you like gender. Again, the US was the first major developed country to implement CRA (civil rights act) legislation forbidding discrimination on the basis of gender in the workplace. The funny thing is that there are some countries that still have no such right. Furthermore, the United States was the first country to legally and comprehensively define sexual harassment in the workplace.
Another talking point is discrimination based on disability. America was the first country to sweep discrimination based on disability out of the country. This was accomplished by the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Another human right that is considered concerns sexual orientation. This however, is not recognized in all of America but only in a few states. Finally, there are human rights concerning the privacy of the accused. Relating to the human right of the accused, they remain innocent until proven guilty. This means that they should be treated like any other citizen. They also have the right to remain silent upon arrest. With this, you can see why America is considered the land of the free.

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