"I am just afraid to raise a black son
Who has to be a martyr for a war he never asked for".
- Jasmine Mans
My feelings...
What hurts the most about being a 21 year old African American Christian woman born in the United States of America is feeling the most direct, blatant and explicit forms of hatred and disrespect toward your people and other minorities, time and time again, without any remorse from the officials of this nation nor from those within the "grace" of white privilege who choose to share their lack of regret. Historically, America has excluded, at a national rate, minority groups from all over the globe, from different religions to different continents. Other than the FOUR hundred years of the inhumane sale and enslavement of African people and the aftermath of various forms of oppression showered upon their descendants, America has also targeted the Japanese, Latinos, Muslims, the Irish, the Native Americans and even, Women. You would think that with all of the wonders of technology and the easy access to international information, that America would also invest in advancing, somehow, morally. We have robots doing human jobs, bombs that drive themselves directly into buildings, equipment to travel into the darkest parts of the ocean to record glow in the dark fish but we cannot seem to understand the value of human life. Hmm. Priorities. We have all of this technology, all of this access to learning about the religions, cultures, values and aspects of life of the people of the world, who are all shades of human flesh might I add, and we are still targeting and killing people, on our own soil, because of the color of their skin. We live in a world where you can learn anything in an instant...and we still haven't learned a damn thing.
Now.
There are people who claim that the killing of Mike Brown was not a race issue.
When there is a pattern of law enforcement taking lethal force on a specific group of people based on their sex and race, it is about race. There is a current force rising for Dillon Taylor, a young white boy who was shot by a Black police officer. God Bless the dead and his family, however there is not a nation wide epidemic of Black police officers targeting white boys for their blue eyes or white skin. There is a difference between a rare tragedy and an entire genocide. There are police officers in this world ready to take out the next little black boy that even looks at him the wrong way, at least that is what it seems like. When the people of a nation are fearful of their lives simply because of the color of their skin...when they are concerned for the well-being of their child to walk to the corner store...when a woman is terrified that her man may not come home after a simple drive to the market all because of some other man's issue with his skin... then it is absolutely a race issue. Just imagine for a second what it would be like to know there was a serial killer targeting children that resembled yours in your neighborhood. That is how I feel every day. That's how Blacks in America feel toward the police officers of this nation...the serial killers in uniform and they are in everyone's neighborhood. I wonder if all of the people who claim race is not an issue ever thought for one second the pain or perspective of those on the other side...
There are people who support Darren Wilson.
I can understand supporting him for valid reasons, like, perhaps, if he were right...or if Mike Brown didn't die. I could see how people would want to support an innocent man or even a remorseful man. But what I do see about those who support him, are that they are mostly white and, judging from the posts on their social media, they have prejudice to full blown racist thoughts of Black people. Please introduce me to some minority organizations or minority serving organizations that openly support him for reasons that are morally valid. The American law system is not built for justice or peace but for those who can trick and manipulate it to fall in their favor, and if you have enough money, or support, you can do just that. Supporting him supports nothing that is morally correct, nothing that is for the positive benefit of the country, nothing other than the retaliation to the precious white supremacy that have COVERED this nation. If there were anything positive, I could understand it. I would try to. But there is nothing acceptable about supporting the efforts of a man who committed a crime in broad daylight and got away with it. None that I can see, at least.
There are people of all races who do not care.
Those of you who remain silent and who do not fight for the rights of others will one day feel the pain of what hatred can do because eventually, it will happen to you. Since the moment Europeans stepped foot on this land, some group of people has been oppressed. Do not wait until it is you who is the target. If you can't do it for Mike Brown, or for the Black population of this country, or for the mothers of the children who've become martyrs for a war that they did not ask for, then do it for the future of you and your children. Who do you want them to be? How do you want them to treat others? Which route would you choose for your child? Care for the simple fact that you are a human being who supports life for all people regardless of race, sex, ethnicity, or class. Care because you actually believe that people deserve a chance to live their life, just like you do. Show that you value your own life enough to value the life of others equally. Treat your neighbor the way you would want to be treated, isn't that what they taught all of us growing up?
There are black people who do not care.
I actually cannot address them. A slave can only be a slave if he has convinced himself it is so. It's not physical bondage that keeps you, it's mental.
Christians.
Who are we to not be praying? Who are we to sit here and argue and not first recognize that lives are being taken! God did not put us here to take life but to give life. We are to be enjoying the world that he created for us and living to praise and worship him every day! We are caught up in this society that was never made for us to conform to. I am angry. I am hurt. I am LIVID. but I am still praying. We must invest in this pain with immeasurable amounts of prayer because this is going to take all of us. Psalms 121 says to look up toward the hills because our help comes from God above! The government is not going to help us. The police department is not going to help us. We cannot keep putting our faith in man or else we will only end up with more death and less solution...I am convinced that we just are not praying enough.
It is heart breaking to know that this is the world we live in. If there isn't police brutality or race issues in one place, there are cast systems and poverty in others, or if there isn't tragedy in one place, there is tragedy in another. It would be so simple to say let's just stop killing and use our words, but words don't mean anything to anyone anymore. When life begins to matter less than paper and minerals...maybe then our arguments will be valid.
I am praying for this country and for the people in it. I am praying for all people who have been and are being oppressed around the world. I am praying for Mike Brown and his entire family for courage, for strength, and for the future of his legacy. I am praying for everyone who is affected by the Ferguson tragedy and for the future of my people, and all people.
BTW: My thoughts and opinions that are represented here are my own. I am not a journalist nor is this an essay. Please refrain from feeling the need to correct me, "check" my sources, or engage in negative dialogue with me about my opinion. I do not hate white people nor am I trying to attack them all, however I do stand against white supremacy 100% and against all discriminatory actions that indicate one human being is lesser than another. I do not wish to offend anyone. I am not participating in the useless social media spread of invalid knowledge. I am utilizing my own blog to state my own opinion. If you do not like something that I said then you are probably a person who needs to be exposed to this opinion. If you are offended I am not sorry, write a blog about it and maybe I will read it. If you like what I said, then thank you and please share this with a friend.
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