Social Justice

We live in a society that carries a very heavy burden and that burden is the issue of equality. Americans of all races at some time or another have had to face the harsh reality that this land of opportunity is plagued with social injustice, racism, discrimination and attitudes that do not embody the spirit of forward progress. The challenges that many face are indeed overbearing and society has accepted this as normal. People from different nations and backgrounds have settled their families upon this place called America in search of opportunity. Many have found that this search has barriers that have made it difficult to obtain the “American Dream”. Whether you come from a poor and impoverished community, you are a minority or you have had some run-ins with the law, the pursuit of finding employment has been hard fought and many are still fighting. Let’s face it, we do not live in the society that Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed of and we do not all have the same freedoms that President Abraham Lincoln fought for. The objective of this paper is to show the barriers to employment that many Americans face today and maybe shed some light on how our nation is trying to fix this problem.

Finding a job in this turbulent economy has been difficult to say the least for most Americans and those with jobs are in fear that layoffs are lurking around the corner. Minorities are facing an even greater battle when it comes to finding employment and to add insult to injury, many are being targeted by unfair hiring practices. Employment discrimination is not a new term but it seems to be a strategy for many employers. The economy has changed the way many company’s hire new employees and many have implemented policies that just down right dirty to say the least. Well you may ask don’t we have laws that prohibit such policies? Your answer would be yes. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was established to provide protection against such policies. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin (EEOC). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or EEOC was also established to give further protection and investigate employment discrimination claims. The EEOC received just shy of 100,000 charges from citizens during the 2011 fiscal year, the most logged in a single year in the agency's 46-year history (Jamieson 2011). The