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Dear Editor:

As a minor in America, I can’t see why people can’t just love each other.

People risk their lives fighting for rights for future generations, but where has it all gone? We shouldn’t be treated like this, we are all people and we all bleed the same color so why does someone’s last words have to be “I can’t breathe?” Why can’t women wear what they want to wear without being criticized? Why do people judge others because of appearances? Why must some children go to school worried that they may be held at gunpoint?

There are children in America who get taken away from their families because, “they’re not the same race” and there are children who are ashamed of who they are and what their ethnicity is.

Children are out there keeping heavy burdens on their shoulders because other people can’t accept their race or gender or even having a disability.

People put themselves out there just to be ridiculed about stuff that they cannot change. Like African Americans get called the n-word but people think it’s “just a word,” but it’s not, it’s a word with meaning, meaning that goes way back to when my ancestors fought for their lives to help future generations get the rights that they didn’t have and to be treated fairly so that all races could get along.

Then women get told that they wear too much makeup or they’re wearing too little, their clothes are too short or too long, or that they’re eating too much or not enough.

Appearances don’t matter but apparently it’s too hard for some people to see that, but what hurts the most is watching the news with my family then seeing something about an African American getting killed and over time I came to realize it’s because of their skin tone.

So with your help I know we can’t make America perfect but hopefully we can make it better than it is now because it’s sad seeing something about a woman being assaulted, a person of color being killed, or a school shooting is such a terrible thing to hear but the worst of all is that future generations will look back at what is happening today and think of these three words, “This is America?”

Layla Tyree Edmonds

13 years old

Rising ninth grader

Prince Edward