My Social Improvement Plan

by Alex Laheb

During the past two years of the covid-19 pandemic, I saw that America had systemic racism in every state. When George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, protesters were upset because of the systemic racism it showed. There were riots in all states. At that time, I decided to work to improve human society—to help solve social and cultural problems. Every minority racial group has suffered because of police brutality, racism and hate speech. In California and New York Asian-Americans were assaulted—victims of hate crime. That was sad. The United States has a history of racism. People believe that race and ethnicity are in the DNA—maybe because they believe in eugenics. Eugenics is a type of social biological science that has the goal of improving the human race. It has been discredited as “unscientific and promoting racial inequality.” It came from ancient Greece. The name was created in 1883 by the British scientist, Francis Galton. I believe that race, ethnicity and gender are socially constructed and not biologically based. That is why I have decided to do something to improve human society. I plan to do this by learning about sociology, anthropology, social science, criminology and social darwinism. I hope to take a social studies class at the Adult Learning Center and to eventually get an MA and a PhD. I would like to understand how race and ethnicity are socially constructed and how they are biologically based. I want to be a sociologist to solve the problems of racism and to help those who have suffered hate speech, racism, discrimination and police brutality. I am getting ready to help improve society.