Tonight I was able to stop by a demonstration on campus that consisted of protesting, marching and a die-in.
Students and staff marched from the middle of campus to the very front of it which just so happens to be near the main road. The peaceful protesting continued there…”hands up, don’t shoot.”…”No justice, no peace.”…”Black lives matter.”
I was standing on the traffic island that divides Lincoln Avenue (our main road) in two with a group of students. There were a lot of us so we were grouped up everywhere around the intersection OFF of the road. No traffic laws were being broken. It was at this moment, in the midst of a “hands up, don’t shoot” chant that a white man in a red pick up truck decided to swerve his truck toward the group as if he was going to run us over. I had only been at the protest for 10 minutes tops when this happened and I remember being too shocked to even move as the man drove off, still swerving wildly in his loud truck, looking out of his window.
Now I’m on social media where students are anonymously asking us black students “what is there to protest about when you only pay half price for tuition?” And it made me realize something. You don’t have to steal swisher sweets out of a gas station or refuse to get on the side walk to be a target in America. No one had to put me in a chokehold for “resisting arrest” and at this point the only reason why I can’t breathe? Is because I’m living in a system that was not designed for me. One day we’re harassed for not going to college and making something of ourselves, the next we’re harassed for going to college and not paying enough money for our education. The nerve.
I attend a university in a town with inhabitants who once OPENLY and jokingly discussed the idea of organizing a lynch mob under the mug shot of a black person on the Charleston Police Department's Facebook page.
I attend a university where my black brothers are repeatedly referred to as thugs because they are from Chicago…but never as gentlemen for graduating with their degrees.
If we would’ve gotten hit by that truck, it would’ve been because we were black in a world that doesn’t accept black as good enough…But I’m sure the news would not have hesitated to mention that we were just simply way too close to the road.
No one ever stopped to ask us what we were protesting about, or ask us why we were so passionate about the failure to indict the police officers who were responsible for Mike Brown and Eric Garner. No one cares. Everyone else saw our skin color and saw enough.
Yes, we’re angry. But we’ve BEEN angry. Getting shot while surrendering is deep, but having no voice is deeper. Our skin does the talking and the white man does the walking…out of the courtroom while we’re 6 feet under.
In my last class of the semester today, African-American Youth Literature, we were wrapping up the semester in a class discussion where the topic of why blacks grow up fearing cops and whites don’t came up. But I want to correct something first, blacks don’t fear cops, cops fear blacks…and while fear is obvious it is also dangerous. My white classmate made mention of how she was always taught that cops could be trusted. Calling 911 was always the solution to a problem according to her teachers. I made sure she knew that I grew up in the same classrooms with the same b.s being fed to me. I was taught that the police would always be there when I needed help.
So what’s the difference? How about when a black man reaches into his pocket to grab the driver’s license he was told to grab by the police officer and gets three bullets in his chest by that same officer because “he thought he was reaching for a gun”.
How about when I get pulled over for an expired license plate sticker and see my skin color before I can even remember where my “license and registration” is…reminding myself that if I move too suddenly, I may not even make it home.
How about when my boyfriend gets pulled over in the middle of the day at the end of July while driving my car in basketball shorts and a wife beater and gets patted down and asked if he has a gun while my car gets searched for no reason. (Afterward the cop made sure he thanked us for being so cooperative because that’s what you do when the jar with scented beads in the back of the car turns out to be an air freshener and not drugs…oh and if anyone has mastered holstering a gun with basketball shorts on, please let my boyfriend know, just out of curiosity, we’re wondering how that goes)
I’m rambling now so I swear I’m going to wrap up and get to my point in just a second.
We’re angry, America. Students, parents, teachers, athletes, congressmen, grandparents, entertainers…we’re angry. We refuse to be silenced by your neglect any longer. Your neglect has led to us being misunderstood. We refuse to be misunderstood any longer. There was a time when we were scared to stand up. Now we hold hands and stand up tall together. What if I told you that you now have a reason to be scared?
I personally do not hate white people, I hate white privilege. I was raised to love and that is the way I will always be because I understand that privilege can have you viewing things from a brainwashed point of view and for that I am truly sorry. For your brainwashed minds, that is.
People want to mention how “every life matters” but fail to value EVERY life.
I am a black student and mother with a spotless record and my life matters. But get this, even if I was a criminal living off government assistance with no job, my life would still matter. And it's nobody's job to decide which life matters more. Is that so hard to understand?
Everyone wants to be understood but no one is trying to understand. That's dangerous. But it's okay, everyone will understand soon enough.
America, what if I told you that you now have a reason to be scared?
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