Civil Rights and Freedom Across the World

What role does Emotion play in our use of justice?

Justice- Just behavior or treatment. Emotion- a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with other. (Based on the author she states that Emotion=Justice) In order to have Justice it needs to have Emotion because there can not be Justice without Emotion.

Almost every living animal known to man has Emotions, humans, dogs, lions, and whales etc. But what’s different between animals and humans is that our emotion can lead us to Justice. Our emotions control what we do. An example of this is let’s say you are married to your dream spouse and have children. Love led to you marring your dream spouse also love is considered to be one of the most powerful emotions. Now it’s just an ordinary day where the family goes to the grocery store, but you had a bad day and decided to stay home. An hour later you receive a phone call from your local police department stating the fact that your family was just hit by a drunk driver, your family has serious injuries and there on the way to the hospital. At this moment you would probably think of the worst possible situation, you might have lost your family. You rush to the Hospital once there a family friend confronts you trying to comfort you. Then he tells you that only one of your children have survived the accident. You break down crying, screaming “Why would you take my family!”. While crying you spot a man coming out of the hospital in cuffs looking down, in a moment of rage you confront him and start screaming at him asking “Why he would drive drunk?” “Why would you take my family?”.

You get held back by police officers, still filled with rage you try to escape the hands of the officers to get to the man responsible for taking your family. A month goes by your in a court room suing the drunk driver, and after all the evidence presented you feel like you will get justice for your family. The whole room feels calm, family friends smiling thinking that you’ve won, at last after the accident you’ll feel justified, the jury finds the defendant not guilty and is released from county jail. The room goes quiet for a moment because everyone is in disbelief, then the yelling starts, your whole family starts bashing the drunk driver and the jury. Your sitting down confused thinking about the whole situation as if you failed to get justice for your family. You look across the room and see the man smiling, the same man who murdered your family. Thought-out this whole ordeal you might have understood why one would feel such sadness and rage at the same time. Both of these are considered to be human's strongest emotions, and with them one can seek justice. Another example would be if you were born in America in 1834 and because of the color of your skin you aren’t allowed to go inside nor even be around a white only property, unless you worked for your landlord picking cotton. Just of think about that, not allowed to be in the same area as a white person, always walking fast past white people, always looking for signs on buildings before entering, always looking over your shoulder no matter where you are.

Always having the fear that maybe you’d be beaten by white men. That’s not humane, living in constant fear, living where you aren’t wanted, being treated like you weren’t nothing, as if the dirt under their shoes are worth more than you. Doing all the hard labor work on the land and the landlord living a rich life. Working your entire life with no breaks, not eating enough food to maintain your healthily weight. Being whipped for not doing a good job or if you had an attitude toward the landlord. So, with all this being said the North part of America found it that it was un-just being treated like nothing and working hard with no pay which led to the beginning of the Civil War. The War was fought for the abolishment of slavery, the North felt sad the way the African people were being treated. Even after the North side of America won the war and abolished slavery with the 13th Amendment, African Americans were still being treated horribly in the South because they acted as if nothing had changed.

They were treated horrible because they weren’t American, so they didn’t have any type of rights, until the movement to pass the 14th Amendment which granted Citizen to ex- slaves and anyone born on US soil. Even if you wanted to vote for your favorite President Candidate you wouldn’t be allowed to vote because you were considered to be Non-American even though you had the 14th Amendment. This then ignited a movement for the 15th Amendment the right to vote, voting is like having a voice and being heard. Almost every single Amendment that is passed, it was passed because of people’s emotions toward the subject. But not only here in America people all over the world are seeking justice with their emotions, Gandhi a social activist led India to its independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. World War 2, The Allies vs. The Axis Powers, Germany had invaded Poland because Hitler wanted it to be a “living space” for the Germans. Poland was defenseless when Germany invaded which caused France and Great Britain to declared war against Germany because it was unjustified as to why Hitler invaded Poland.

Past, Present and, Future humans have been using our emotions to seek for justice. Emotions drives us to make the world a better place.

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