Until the day comes when the political leaders of this country are courageous enough to do what must be done to tangibly and concretely correct the historical ills in this society — with laws, enforcement, and funding — individuals and institutions of good will must make every effort to affect change in our own backyards.
The time has come when all persons in this country have an equal shot at the American Dream, and are afforded all the vaunted liberties of the American citizen, such as equal protection under the law. At the founding of this nation, the African- descended American was considered a mere three-fifths of a man and, as W. E. B. Du Bois noted in The Souls of Black Folk, America “classed the Black man and the ox together.” Many have begun to question just how far removed we really are from these founding American sentiments. In the end, this is the bottom line: We can no longer protect dogs more fiercely than we do African-Americans in this country. Doggone it!
Dr. Pamela D. Reed is a diversity consultant and assistant professor of English and African-American literature at Virginia State University.
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