Humanity and lessons of history

It has been one year since the infamous killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. Looking back at the incident, I wonder if the world has learnt anything from it. Illustrious personalities like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and of course, Michael Brown have sacrificed their lives. Do we remember them?
This was the first question I had asked my father while studying for a history test back in Grade 3. He solemnly replied that, 'History is a compilation of our mistakes along with our successes. The point of keeping both was important so that we can learn from our past mistakes.
After all these years of studying history as well as trying to understand all the events that occur all around the world, I have come to a conclusion: man is the worst of nature's students.
Man made mistakes since the beginning of civilization. A line was drawn between communities based on colour and religion.
In the eyes of the white, the word 'black' represented uncivilized and dirty people. Being black did not only mean to be dark, it was also meant to be rotten in every single way possible. Why do we call corrupted money 'black' money? We could have called it 'white'. It is because we had let the non-coloured folks be under control.
For the past two hundred and fifty years, we have been fighting racism, prejudice, and every form of social discrimination. Has the human race learnt a single lesson over this long period of time? I seriously doubt it, because more people are now killed for racism than before. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and millions of other people gave their lives for the cause.
Nelson Mandela gave 26 years of his life fighting racism. We all thought that his work was not in vain, perhaps it was not when he was alive. But is it the same now?
Harper Lee published her ground-breaking novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' in 1960. The book talked about prejudice and how it had come to such an extent that it would be hard to completely remove or even reduce its influence. Unfortunately, all the effort she put into the book has gone in vain.    
Michael Brown, the name which had reverberated around most households over the past year, was one of those people who had fallen prey to all this nonsense. Michael was a typical black American who was shot because he accidentally pushed a policeman, or because he was suspected of stealing a few cigars from a shop. Whatever the reason may be, does not anybody's life have any value? Life might have been created with a 'bang', but it does not mean that it should end with one.
All lessons of history have been remembered and forgotten in such a manner.  Because I am just not able to find any other excuse for our failure to remember our faults and take the right step forward to correct them, a step that should be taken without any hesitation, by all members of the human race together.  When we take this step forward, unimaginable heights could be reached and the true meaning of the idiom "United we stand, divided we fall" would finally be understood.
Tahseen Rashid
Class: X
Sunbeams School
tahseen_cricket@hotmail.com