Past or Present?

Past or Present?

This past year we have all heard the saying “make America great again”, and it has made many of us really think about how different life is now compared to “back then.” It also makes us think about which one would we honestly prefer? When many people think about the past they think of simpler times, times where everything was cheaper, towns were smaller and people were friendlier. Yet, we don’t think about the negative parts of the past, and in my opinion to truly decide whether the past or the present is better we have to discuss both the positive and the negative sides of both.

There is no denying that the past was a simpler time, a time where people actually had real conversations instead of just texting back and forth. It was a time of playing outside with the neighborhood kids until the street lights came on, instead of being glued to a video game. The past has many great qualities that easily make people wish that we still had that kind of simpler life style, but the truth is, is that they past like the present also had its bad sides. What I mean by this is that during those times most women did not work outside of the home. They did not have the same rights as their male counterparts, and were treated as though their purpose on earth was to cook, clean, raise children and do what they were told by the male head of house hold. To simply put it women of the past did not have a voice.

The past was also a time of segregation, segregation was a huge part of the past which many people try to ignore. Segregation is something that we read about in history class but have never had to experience and I pray we never do. African Americans were treated worse than white women were, they not only had no voice but they had no way of even trying to gain one. During the times of segregation many African Americans suffered tremendously, simply because people didn’t like the color of their skin. I will admit, that while we are facing racial issues still to this day it is nothing compared to what they went through in the past. African Americans were not the only ones to suffer, Homosexuals were also mistreated. Homosexuals in the past were often forced to hide their true self from others in fear of being shunned or worse attacked.

Now that I have talked about the positives