The United States of America, the land of the free and home of the brave, a place where everyone is treated equally, right? The country that is at all the envy of all other countries because of the great "melting pot" that we have here in this great nation. But even though we do have great diversity, is it desirable to be a person of race in this country? This paper will ask these questions and explore the raw data that has happened in the last decade to see if being a non-white person living in the greatest nation in the world is such a great thing.
             The latest incidents in the media are frightening and give more of a feeling of "retro" progress as opposed to progress that ignites change in American minds about racism. Incidents such as the one involving the Haitian immigrant who was beaten and raped by police officers is a prime example of retro progress. The million-dollar question: is racism getting better or worse after decades of methods that try to fixing the problem?
             The Haitian man, Abner Louima, was sodomized with a toilet plunger handled by four of Brooklyn's 70th precinct police officers. Abner was left permanently disabled and raped of his dignity. The police spoke nothing of the incident for two days after the beating and the rape in hope to alleviate the problem at the precinct. What the Brooklyn police department hoped to accomplish was to confine the officers involved to the incident. The police station has evoked anger and outrage all over the world. Louima has announced plans to file a fifty-five million dollar lawsuit against the city of New York. The mayor of New York, Rudolph Guliani, who in the past supported New York's zero tolerance policy, opted swiftly for Louima instead of his own officers. This proves that even the mayor sees clear evidence of human rights violation. Now whether this has monetary restitution of this large value is up to the courts. But clea...