The Divided States of America (￢_￢;)

      This week's module discusses political polarization, terrorist attacks, and civil rights advancements (LGBT, people of color in politics). In this post, I will be focusing on the topic of political polarization, which is the idea that parties in government could create rifts in the country on the basis of ideologies. As a result, citizens could begin to fight with each other and prevent progress and solidarity within that country, such as the US. Two of the largest political parties today are the Republican and Democratic parties. Admittedly, there are other parties besides these, however, they are much smaller and have significantly less influence of politics and the country. This division amongst a country's own people can become very dangerous and express itself in protests, riots, and even civil wars.

     On the same spectrum of polarization due to differences in beliefs, a recent case of this in the US can be seen in the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. This movement is fighting for reforms in the government, and society as a whole, to face the stark differences in treatment of black people still in a post-Civil War America. Even though major acts and laws were put in place to better the lives of black people, and other people of color, there is still "the suffering of Black people" in the US today. Specifically, people in power (like the police) are hurting the black community and able to get away with it due to their positions in society. As a result, the black community is speaking up through the 'Black Lives Matter' movement and bringing awareness to this issue.

     Unfortunately, instead of achieving reforms and unity in the country by bringing attention to the important issue of discrimination by those in authority to marginalized groups, divisions and resentment arose instead. To explain further, the country has now divided itself into two 'sides' of those seeking improvements in the system of authority and those that are for the current system, which is actively preying upon marginalized groups. More specifically, this can be seen in the opposing movement namely 'All Lives Matter' that sparked to retaliate the 'Black Lives Matter' movement. Over time, these "tensions and conflicts" would result in casualties on both sides, caused by one's fellow American. Now, the country was polarized against each other over a topic, civil rights, that should have united the country together to work towards a more equal America.

     These two topics of race and political parties are similar in that both have created rifts amongst the country's own people. Unfortunately, gaps in ideologies can result in fights and misunderstandings amongst a country's own citizens and this is a seemingly global issue. For some reason, it's seemingly impossible to get people to understand the differences in beliefs people can have and to accept that they will not see eye-to-eye. One must note, that this is not to undermine the real problem of divisions due to major issues such as rights, liberties, and discrimination, but to address the idea of accepting differences in beliefs that are not harmful to others or groups (such as taxes, government structures). Perhaps, the issue lies in the fact that humans struggle to debate, rather than argue, over differences and until humanity learns to do this, people will continue to be polarized and fight their fellow neighbor.

REFERENCES:

Konadu, K., & Gyamfi, B. (2021, August 8). Black Lives Matter: How far has the movement come? The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-how-far-has-the-movement-come-165492