J.J.

America has treated black people like animals since they were first forced here. For years black people were mistreated and disregarded. All those 400 years of being degraded and humiliated, just for the descendants of slaves to not even know their native language or culture. Our last names are given from our ancestors' masters, our language is that of our captors and it has taken over 400 years for people to finally make some noise for us. It took dozens of lives to be lost for people to see that this is a clear genocide. We built our culture and new identities from the ground up, we have people who look like us making history and yet we aren't seen as equal. It doesn't end with police, it’s ingrained in our society, the constitution that's supposed to guarantee our freedom for being an American was written by white men who owned slaves. The large corporations take our culture and use it as a costume, African American vernacular English is taken and made a mockery of, our skin is trendy when it’s not on us, our hair is fashionable when it's worn by celebrities, our music is seen as loud and aggressive, our youth is seen as dangerous and ghetto, our women are seen as sexual objects or angry, our men are seen as evil and lazy, our president says “what else do we have to lose” and words we set out to reclaim are thrown around without a care and I have been tired. And now finally the people can’t turn their heads and ignore how deeply systemic racism is. They must hear us, as we are tired of being tired. We are no longer going to allow us to be killed and treated without respect. Hopefully, now with time, black people will be able to truly be free to live in “the land of the free”.