“ShaQuana your starting right forward.” My good day suddenly came to a halt. Shock and awe filled the soccer team as the words left the coach’s mouth. Debra gave me her look of astonishment, and I returned the same. I stared at the coach in disbelief, He knows she’s not good, why does he put her in? As we disbanded many of the girls came into a huddle discussing the paralyzing situation.

“It’s not fair!” whined Debra

“She’s horrible! She’s only playing because her mom is good friends with the coach,” Suzan barked.

I just walked with my head down fuming with every step. I kicked some grass on the way dirtying my fairly new white and blue Nike Tiempo cleats. Frustration, anger and sorrow overcame me. My mother always told me to life isn’t fair, but until I reached high school I never fully believed it was true. When children are little parents tell them that you should always be fair and to treat everyone equally, so when we were young we did so, but why then, when we grow up do we stop following that saying? When and why do we change? As we grow up we develop feelings of greed, jealousy, vain and such, thus causing us to change our opinion on treating everyone equally.

The exact definition of equality is the state or quality of being equal. Most people take it for granted. They don’t even notice injustice until it happens. I may only be 15 years old but I know injustice when I see it and I have also had it happen to me. Being the youngest of the family I have not been treated equally all the time. Sometimes my sisters needs come before mine because of their age or situation. Injustice doesn’t just happen at home. At school people aren’t just judged on their grades and personality, but their style and or money. Kids are harsh and they never take a day of from judgement. Even in the past people haven’t been treated equally. For example African Americans fought to be released from slavery and to be welcomed into society as brothers rather than outsiders, but even when slavery was abolished they were still treated as lepers. Martin Luther King, Jr., to action to change that, organizing boycotts and speeches such as his most famous “I have a dream.” In that speech he states “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Although many people struggled to keep the African Americans as foreigners mans craving to be equal prevailed. African Americans weren’t the only ones fighting for equality, women fought for years for equal rights. They were always supposed to be seen and not hear, but that didn’t sit right with them. Holding many protests and rallies women finally achieved their goal in 1920 when they were granted the right to vote.

Today people are still not treated equally although many laws have been passed to do so, discrimination is still afoot today in our society. We must try our hardest to prevent this and to move on to the future. I believe everyone should be treated equally and I know that belief will never change. The only thing that will change is the way I feel we should accomplish that.