In a nation known for progression it seems as though the United States is only interested in regression. Many people are no longer allowed to live and thrive here in this hostile and dangerous country –unless of course you are a stereotypical white upper class male, then you are welcomed to whatever you want in the “land of the free”. 

While many people watch their basic human rights being stripped away, those who are supposed to protect them are the people who are instead leading the charge in the destruction of human rights throughout America, leaving millions wondering what the actions of the Right are really leading too.

No one is really safe here anymore. The only thing that seems to matter to the right is the protection of children. Actually recent gun laws have left thousands of children completely vulnerable in the once perceived safe place of school. Now that is one of the most dangerous places for children to be. 

Parents are left searching for bulletproof backpacks and schools can only resort to training children what to do if they are presented with an active shooter. But the only obvious solution is to arm the teachers so that they can sacrifice their lives for their children. 

Because of their lack of actions or even acknowledgment at the very least, it has become very apparent that to the Right it is far more important to protect children from the threat of books, such as The Hate You Give, Gender Queer: A Memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue. Because those are so harmful to developing minds. Don’t you worry right wing conservatives, dead children can’t read. Books like these are apparently a more imminent threat to children’s lives than the guns that have murdered hundreds of young and innocent children. 

Don’t forget about the fact that the right of choice is being chipped away from women state by state, all the way to the point that in South Carolina representatives are proposing laws that women who receive a medically necessary abortion can face the death penalty. There is to be no exception, not for rape, not even for incest. 

 Periods most generally begin between ages 10-15, so 10-year-old young children are supposed to be able to give birth, raise and support a child while still being a baby themselves. Considering the damage birth does to a fully grown person’s body, on an underdeveloped 10-year-old, their body would be completely and utterly destroyed by pregnancy and birth alone, not even mentioning the mental toll of being raped then giving birth to a fully grown baby. 

They are expected to deal with all of that completely by themselves, because after the child is born Republicans want nothing to do with it. But according to the right wing 18-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to vote anymore because they are too immature to make such a large scale life-altering choice such as that.

Basically, if you are different in any way from the “obviously superior” white man or an unborn fetus, you are irrelevant and not worth the protection of our government. It’s gotten to the point that LGBTQIA+ face hundreds of anti-trans bills every week that continue on in 2023, as well as the growing restrictions of gay marriage/relationships.

 Children aren’t allowed to be themselves anymore because schools are turning on LGBTQ+ children due to legislatures making it required, leaving thousands of children without the support that was once the only thing that allowed them to feel ok in their search for self. Children can be outed to their families by their schools.

Now nearly 60 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Mississippi lawmakers are proposing bills that would reinstate the Jim Crow Laws that plagued our country all those years ago. Bill 1020 itself isn’t a part of the Jim Crow Laws specifically, but it would pave the way for lawmakers to bring back the Jim Crow laws, and that prospect is what has people in a panic. After they removed the right to vote for 18-year-olds they have decided to set their sights on people of color’s right to vote. 

Though it is not to the scale and horrors of the true Jim Crow Laws, the reinstatement of such a Jim Crow Era law is just paving the way for them to bring back all the horror that used to plague our country. They’re removing rights for women, people of color, and especially LGBTQIA+, leaving a world where the only people who can be in a position of any relative power are the old white men. 

Just when we thought America was on the incline on its equality platform, we are going back to the ideologies of centuries ago when the only people worth protecting are the white man. Women’s rights are slowly being stripped away to nothing. Bodily autonomy is a basic human right and the government has absolutely no business being involved with the uteruses of children, though they feel it is necessary for them to focus their power there. People of color are being forced back into the heinous era of the ‘50s when having a different skin tone makes you less than human in the eyes of America. The LGBTQIA+ people who have fought for a near century only for their right to simply be alive and be themselves. Children can’t even go to their places of education without the overwhelming fear of being blown to pieces with weapons that are apparently more important to protect than the children that make up our future. 

If you aren’t a white man in this country you can’t just exist safely. You just are not allowed to anymore, and this is only the beginning. They are going after things that we never thought they would, and if they want to bring back the insanity of the 1900s, we will bring back the rage and unity minorities of the time had. 

People have fought for their right to exist for centuries, and we certainly aren’t going to give it up that easily. So even when those in power stand in the way of equality, the good people who make up this world will continue to fight for everyone’s right to live peacefully in this world. They will not give up no matter what others do to try and stop them.