How far have we really come as a society

My Dad was in the National Guard in the the late 50's and 60's.  In 1959 my father was sent to Tennessee for the Guard. Two of the young men in my Dad's company were black. As they all arrived a day early, they went to a local hotel to stay for the night before reporting in the morning. The hotel manager told the group "You white guys can stay, but you ni*****s  can't, this is a whites only hotel" My father was shocked and disgusted. He told the young men, while glaring at the hotel manager, "We'll go somewhere else". The young African-American men where appreciative he wanted to stand up for them but told my Dad there was no point, this was the south and it would be the same everywhere they went. The two left and found a place to stay, where my Dad never knew.  They never discussed it after that night.  Growing up his entire life in New Jersey and never having been anywhere else until this point, it was behavior that my father had not experienced before and was appalled by. Over 50 years later, when my Dad tells that story, it is with anger, never understanding how this country could treat it's own people with such hate. Even in 2014,  I have asked myself that same question.

All these years later, we no longer have "Whites Only" establishments. Our current president is of mixed race. There are extreamly successful people of all minorities in almost every sector of business.  Yes, we have progressed. But then you have Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the thousands like them. What happened in Ferguson and Staten Island are not isolated incidents in this country. And although they were both complex and different legal issues, they both involved a white police officer and an African-American citizen, the key words being American citizen. It brought to our attention that dispite our society having progressed, at times we are still a racist country (even if you only base this on ugly things written on Twitter by bigoted assholes). No matter what you think of Treyvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, etc  they were someone's child, brother and husband. My heart breaks for their families and for any family who has lost a loved one to senseless violence, regardless of their race. 

Sadly, we are never going to stop prejudice and racism entirely .  Maybe if we continue to be disgusted by people's behavior we will change how society acts towards each other. If we continue to protest peacefully that as citizens of this country, we will not tolerate racism of any kind. Legally, I don't know if what the grand jury in the Brown and Garner cases and the actual jury in the case of Treyvon Martin decided were the right decisions. Morally, I know all three of those men did nothing that should have resulted in their deaths and people should have been held accountable. We have come only so far as a society - but we can do so much better. I will never give up hope that can happen.