Seeing the comments from people on your page that have never been racially profiled, or stopped and frisked, or followed around a store, or questioned if they had the funds to purchase something, or pulled over for DWB (driving while black), or had family members involved in civil rights movements in the 50s & 60s makes me beyond frustrated, angry, sad, hurt and discouraged.. People always joke that Im not really black, and I have a great command over the english language or my clothes fit (not XXXL), but when those things happened to me, it reminded me that Im just as black as any of the thugs that people are scared of. And I know that when most people say Thug they really mean Ni**er, but they wont say it to my face. They will never understand what it is like, even if you are following the law or being respectful or doing as the officer has asked you. I know I am a good person, but the color of my skin can say otherwise when there isnt the opportunity to find that out. This is not one incident or maybe a couple of incidents to go tit for tat about, black kid this time or white kid that time. It is a tipping point of what is acceptable discretion or tolerance with one race, isnt even considered with the other. 21 times less tolerated. And this is waaaay better than what my parents dealt with, and my grandparents before them, but its still a struggle more often than it should be. The people involved in the civil rights movements are still here. Ruby Bridges (first girl to integrate public schools) is in her 50s. All the Civil Rights leaders we looked up to (Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Huey Newton, etc.) were all murdered, or they would be in Ferguson or Staten Island now. I mean even George W Bush, disagreed with the Eric Garner case, and Kanye pointed out what he thought about GWB during the Katrina fiasco. All cops are not bad and all blacks are not criminals. White privilege exists whether people believe it or not. And the problem with the narrative throughout history is that the victors always tell the story. Whether that story is complete, partial, true or not. -An anonymous friend, who happens to be African American
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:59:02 +0000
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