If God Were A Human Rights Activist Summary

Sousa Santos opens "If God were a Human Rights Activist" with a very powerful statement about how a large majority of the world's inhabitants are not the subject of human rights, but objects of human rights dates (Santos, 1). Meaning people are acknowledging there are injustices going on in the world, but actions speak louder than words, and there aren't a lot of actions occurring in favor of those being violated. America one of the wealthiest countries in the world claim to protect the human rights of the American people, but many of those not falling into the wealthy 1% of the population are still facing human rights violation and oppression, in a nation that supports to set the standard for human rights. Some believe The United States is the standard for human rights, this idea stems from the fact the world accept what Santos calls the "natural conception" of human rights, which are set in Western values, a system where the powerful create the values that are
The United States may have eliminated things such as colonialism and slavery, but racism and exploitation of people of minority groups, the poor and certain immigrant groups continue throughout the generations, and basic human rights for all people aren't even being met.
Historical human rights tend to favor the wealthy, whether it's America or globally, and as we have learned human rights cannot be universal in a world where the wealthy always comes up on top, and countries take certain groups of people and deem them inhuman. As I previously mentioned the future of human rights, depends on the ability to move past the notion that we blame and shame the poor, instead of getting to the root of our problems, shows how human rights still and always will favor the rich. Take the low-income African American community; especially single mothers are blamed