Well, America - you suck. Sorry to say it, but even though we've made tremendous strides in some areas, black people are still being murdered. Murdered. Pressing your knee onto a black man's neck as he says "I can't breathe" until he dies, is murder. Plain and simple. Chasing down a black man running in a neighborhood and shooting him dead, is murder.
I am a white woman who was raised in sunny, southern California. I have never once been afraid to go for a run in my neighborhood in fear that a random person or persons would chase me down and kill me. I have never once entered a store afraid that I'd be followed because they thought I looked like a person who would steal. I've never once been told that my hair isn't "professional" in a work environment, or that it makes me look like a "thug." I have never once been afraid that my life could possibly be taken if I called the cops, even if I was in danger.
In short, I live my life on a daily basis with a feeling of general safety. Sure, I'm a woman, and I have my fears being out alone especially at night, but for the most part—I can live my life without fear of dying at the hands of someone who views me as a threat simply by the color of my skin or the texture and style of my hair. I've never had to grow up in a poverty-stricken neighborhood due to government neglect which made me depressed and hopeless, turning me to join a gang or sell drugs to survive.
Racism isn't something we're born with, it's taught. From seeing mostly white people in seats of power and on screen, to recognizing a peach-colored crayon as having the label "flesh", to makeup brands limiting shades to fairer skin tones—racism isn't always as blatant as a member of the KKK parading through the streets. It's underlying, it's present everywhere, in sometimes very subtle ways. You just have to look closer, and see that what we white people view as "normal", is really people of color, especially black people, being excluded. It's telling black people that they do not exist in the same realm as white people. And it's been going on for hundreds of years.
Black people have had their African identities removed due to the slave trade. Their heads have been shaved removing any mark of their tribal position and culture; their backs were scarred with whips at the hands of white men who called them property; their necks and faces were imprisoned with spiked muzzles and metal collars; they were brutally murdered by white slave owners, and are still being murdered. Even after Lincoln freed the slaves, they weren't given proper standards of living. They had to share land with the white men who had once owned and brutalized them. They were barred from voting. They weren't seen as a "full human being"—by law. Jim Crow laws ran rampant, creating ridiculous rules to keep black people from earning more money and generating wealth; going to college; becoming doctors and lawyers; even drinking from the same water fountain as a white person. They couldn't even enter through the same door as a white person.
Black men, women, and children have lived in fear for centuries. They are afraid to go running in their neighborhoods; walking down the street; going to a mall; running an errand—they are afraid because their race is seen as a threat punishable by death. White people have been propagating this idea since the beginning of slavery, and the evidence is strong when you visit former plantations turned into memorials for murdered slaves, or the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Michigan. The evidence is clear: white people, the race in power, have tried to push down black existence so far down to make them seem like they don't deserve to be treated like human beings. The system in America was built on slavery and keeping black people from escaping it; they live in constant fear, and the news stories we've seen just recently is proof.
I can't begin to fathom what it's like to be black in America. I can learn as much as I can and listen to black citizens of the U.S. all day and night, and I will still never fully understand what it's like to wake up everyday and worry that someone is going to either be racist towards me, or kill me. I want any black person reading this article to know that I am your ally. We white people/non-black people need to listen to and learn about the things that would best help the black community. From the numbers we should call demanding change, charities we should donate to improving resources for the black community, to black influencers and business owners—take action. I made the mistake before of thinking that we should ask the black community questions in order to show solidarity, but it is not their responsibility to teach us. We need to do the work ourselves. We need to do the research, read the books and articles, listen to the podcasts, watch the documentaries and T.V. shows, follow the accounts of black leadership organizations—we need to climb out of our own complacency and stop asking black people to do even more work for white people.
Please, everyone, listen to the black community. Hear what they have to say, and what they've been saying for years. Educate yourself. Read books on white privilege and talking about race; read about the history of the U.S. slave trade. Be informed. It's very easy for us white people to simply go on with our lives and do nothing; that is white privilege. We have to do better for our black brothers and sisters who are hurting, who are crying out for help, who are being murdered in cold blood.
We have to do something. We have to be brave.
Comentarios