Issues such as Katrina, gangs, racism, and class inequalities make me wonder what the worth of human life is.

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most traumatic disasters in America specifically the black community.

The amount of lives that were lost made blacks reevaluate whether their lives held any worth in America. Even after all of the media rage the situation received, there was no sign of help until two weeks after the accident.

There were people still in the waters waiting to be rescued, but animals had trucks and rescuers to come get them? Now I have nothing against animals, but do you think that animals would have had rescuers before the most famous people in America if they were caught in a tragedy? Let’s be real, Katrina demonstrated just how much the American government thought of the lives in New Orleans.

Gang violence is another spreading epidemic in many communities. Young lives are lost everyday to the battle of the streets. Not one solution has been made in full effort to resolve this problem.

Our police departments seem to just “give up”, and I feel it’s because they don’t believe we are worth the fight. Yes, a lot of these corrections could be made within our homes, but pointing the finger isn’t going to stop it.

Since I witnessed gang violence back home, I struggle to understand how it hasn’t been controlled. I want to know how many lives have to be lost in order for our communities to take a serious approach to the problem.

When we look at racism we see how it still exists and shown in cases such as Megan Williams, I wonder how many more black women, or women period have to be raped in order for us to reach overall equality. America continues to overlook the issues as if they are bad things that randomly happened.

I feel like our society picks and chooses what issues can be discussed and which ones can be ignored. We’ve seen constantly how issues dealing with blacks or the working class have been put on the back burner. That is ridiculous! We are the foundation for this country, yet we can’t be recognized like any other American because we don’t have the same worth in society’s eyes? That sounds like a personal problem if you don’t want to listen in on issues that affect everyone. We have also allowed social classes to determine our worth in America. If you do not have enough money to buy healthcare, you get the worst form of healthcare.If you have a low income, you are forced to live in poverty conditions and are more likely to look into rebuilding your credit because of the poverty cycle that not only harms your wallet, but credit score too. It seems as if the American culture has put a price on life.

Since when did money and race become legitimate reasons to determine our worth in this country?

Everyday we wake up and face the same challenges in a society that doesn’t equally acknowledge us all. How many tragedies, murders, or poverty stricken households will it take for our country to take a serious look at these issues?

I don’t’ know about you, but I don’t want to wait until the next blow is too close to home before taking action. Life is priceless and no man or anything materialized can determine its worth.

• Ashley Reid