“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Our forbearers, across our history, have fought for those principles in some way shape or form, and today’s generation of Americans enjoys a higher level of freedom and a greater understanding of what it means for all to be created equal. While we have made progress, we cannot ignore the darker elements of our past still haunting us in the present: those elements of racism, xenophobia, and bigotry. If these elements still persist in my generation, I cannot say in confidence we have reached the vision of our founders.

The most remembered movement in our history is the continued fight for racial equality, and the goal to end prejudice upon the mere basis of race and ethnicity. With figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King fresh in the public memory, we know that as a country we have made great strides in overcoming the atrocities of slavery and segregation. We have the lasting presence of the Civil Rights Act and the Emancipation Proclamation to prove it. Yet, still, we see the wrongful deaths of unarmed black men, from Ferguson, MO to New York, at the hands of overly aggressive cops (who in turn dishonor righteous police officers), based on ideas that profiling upon the basis of race will somehow end crime for good. Despite the rightful indignation of the “Black Lives Matter” movement in response to these tragedies, there are still those who say that prejudice is not a factor.

The African American community is not the only minority affected today, though. American Muslims have also been unfairly targeted in the wake of 9/11, and the recent unfair arrest of 14-year old Ahmed Mohammed for bringing a homemade clock for a science class and having it mistaken for a “bomb” goes to show how rampant and ignorant the phenomenon of Islamophobia is.

Similarly, Latinos face prejudice, and are called ‘parasites’ by anti-immigrant dogmatists when they try to make a better life here in the US. Presidential candidate Donald Trump, the biggest face of this new xenophobia, subscribes strongly to such ideals. It would do him well to remember that his grandfather Friedrich Drumpf was a German immigrant who came to New York to seek a better life, all the while facing anti-immigrant sentiment along with incoming Italians, Russians and Irishmen.

What is unique about discrimination is that as a society we don’t limit it only to ethnicity. We’ve also been doing so upon the basis of sexual orientation. While the recent supreme court ruling in Obergefell V. Hodges was cited as a major leap in progress for LGBT community, making same-sex marriage legal in the United States, the community still struggles with a lack of legal protections. In other words, if you are gay, you now have the right to marry your spouse, but there is no guarantee you will be protected under federal law from harassment or unfair workplace firings, or that you won’t be discriminated on the basis of your sexual orientation when you apply for a job.

All in all, we have differing ideas of our rights and freedoms as Americans, but I am convinced that the idea of equality is paramount to our experience and culture. While injustice persists, we must remember that to stand against it is a reflection of that belief, and that we have an obligation to stamp it out while we still can.