Black Lives Matter

If you don’t know or understand different people or cultures, does that lead you to be afraid of them? Are you justified being afraid of them?

While it may be natural to be afraid of people who are different, it does not justify your fear.

Rather than being defensive with your guard up, get to know people. It’s only fair to try to understand people who show you no harm.

We are not the same, but we are all human with different personalities and intellects. I’m a little darker, but that doesn’t make me a criminal. I might be a doctor, lawyer or in college but you wouldn’t know because we are automatically labeled from the start — danger, be aware, be wary.

Black Lives Matter was created in 2012 after Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman who was acquitted for his crime.  A dead, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was posthumously placed on trial for his own murder. How can this be right? A young man lost his life for wearing a black hoodie after dark. The movement is rooted in the experience of black people in this country who actively resist our de-humanization.

Black Lives Matter is a call to action. It is a response to the violent anti-black racism that permeates our society. Black Lives Matter offers a unique contribution to our country that goes beyond extrajudicial killings of black people by police and vigilantes. Black Lives Matter gives us all an opportunity to think and analyze how we can move forward as a better society and a better country. I feel that black people are intentionally left powerless at the hand of the state. Often, black people are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity.

Part of the solution has to be to fight fear based on color. Try to see me as the same, just a different color. I’ll try to see you as the same, just a different color.