America has made leaps and bounds toward justice and equality, but we have not yet finished the race; structural violence, sex crimes and mass shootings remain prevalent in our society. Whether it’s innocent people getting killed for no reason or the continuing cycle of constant poverty, our country is facing extreme problems that need to be fixed.

Our country has, however, done many wonderful things. We strive to ensure freedom and equality on the international stage, work towards improving health and education at every turn and create standards for developing nations to follow. All of these wonderful things though, should not overshadow the fact that our country still has work to do.

A sex crime happens every 98 seconds, three times as many Black and Hispanic drivers are searched than white drivers and guns have gone off in schools 18 times this year. I’m not here to argue politics. Quite frankly, I don’t care how these problems get solved as long as they do in fact get fixed.

What needs to happen in our country is partisan politics need to be set aside, and focus turned to making sure our country is a country of freedom, justice and equality. We cannot sit back and say “Well, look how far we’ve come” because it doesn’t matter how much progress we have made if we haven’t fixed the problems altogether.

The only way these problems can be fixed is by society placing a priority on maintaining the values in which our country is supposed to stand. It takes every one of us to make our progress matter.

We can learn so much from people like Malala Yousafzai, who’s known for her activism for gender equality, Martin Luther King Jr., who fought every moment to ensure justice, and Rosa Parks, who boldly stood up for freedom.

We cannot let the past 200 years of change and restoration fall to ruins purely because of our own ignorance. We must look towards the future with the intent to make it better each and every day. We cannot idly sit and wait for something to happen. We must make it happen ourselves.