Writer's statement: I didn’t write this because I wanted to be part of the majority of people who just go with whatever the media or society tells us to go with. I wrote this because I saw a spark in our society. I saw love with no hate. But as soon as I saw that love, it was wiped away. I saw a man being murdered by a policeman because of the color of his skin. I’m going to be honest I was pretty blind to the racial discrimination in our society but as soon as I saw George Floyd, a black man being killed, I knew that needed to change. I was pretty sickened after watching this video. I remember thinking, “Who in their right mind would do this?!”. After thinking and pondering what I could do, I thought I could be a part of change. Changing the way I act around black people and people of color. Instead of using my white privilege and sitting silent waiting for something to happen, I would make something happen. I told myself I would stand with my black brothers and sisters and fight for their equal rights. There is a quote that I think couldn't be more true in this situation and it says, “ This isn't a fight between black and white, it's a fight between good and evil.” I think it's 100% true that it's not the whites fighting against the blacks. It's fighting for their rights because they are humans just like you and me. At the end of my writing I write about us not having to ask “where is the love?”. If we all choose to help those black people fighting for their rights, we eventually won't have to ask this question.
I hope after reading my writing I can persuade you to help those black people who are in need of our help. I hope you will join the “good side” in fighting for their rights because after all...they are humans too and they deserve all the rights we have.
The start of quarantine in the U.S. was in one of the greatest uplifting moments I've ever seen in awhile and for me it sparked hope that our world could change. We all came together and supported each other. We showed love for each other by staying home and not spreading a virus. It didn't matter what we looked like, what gender we were, what sexuality or what race we were. All that mattered was that we were all in this fight together and that we would all rise to the challenge. But it seems like all good things come to an end.
We used to call black people our slaves and make them do the dirty work and then people like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. came along. MLK fought peacefully for equal rights and Abe fought for the ending of slavary. They seemed to have ended these horrible ways but apparently treating colored people like animals could be likened to a dormant volcano. It erupts and then goes silent for a while and the impacts are devastating, and it becomes a cycle. This can be related to racism and racial discrimination because we have moments where we have it and we have moments where we don’t. Recently George Floyd, a man in Minnesota, was choked to death by a police officer because he supposedly foraged money and resisted arrest. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/us/minneapolis-protests-george-floyd/index.html
In these articles you can see he is not resisting arrest but he is in fact pleading them to put him in their car. This is unacceptable in society. He is pleading for help and the officers don’t give help to him. They are ignoring one of the most basic human reactions (to help someone) just because he is a different color. I’m upset because for some reason police officers and other white people around the world think that it’s ok to treat colored people like animals. It’s not ok because at the end of the day we are all human and we should all be treated with respect. We have the potential to love without hate. I saw that love in quarantine but it quickly disappeared when a black man needlessly lost his life.
We need to keep this peace and love. To do that we have to push our assumptions about other people away and we have to get to know them and who they are. We need to learn their feelings and emotions and how they live their lives. We can't just look at them and think they are bad or mean or threaten us because of their color. There is a saying that states, "don't judge a book by its cover.” This is true in all parts of life including how we look at people. People are people no matter what.
I don’t think we should go and create more violence around this topic because that will only hurt our cause. We should protest in a way that makes people realize that racial discrimination needs to stop. Violence is never the answer. If anything it hurts the reason you are protesting for. Peacefully protesting is effective because that is the way MLK was heard and that is the way we can be heard. If it means standing up for those people then take that stand be that bigger man. If it means you have to push a policeman over to save a man’s life, do it. Humans saving other humans is natural. We are just scared of the consequences because of society nowadays. Consequences are a part of life. We make decisions that can impact us for the rest of our life. I would rather be put in jail for 5 years knowing I saved a man instead of sitting there for five minutes watching him be killed.
We all have dreams. Dreams are good because we tend to put all our effort into achieving those dreams. MLK had a dream that colored people and white people could be friends. He worked as hard as he possibly could to achieve that dream. He ultimately died because someone shot him, but that was because that person didn’t want the other people to realize the truth MLK was speaking. MLK died knowing he changed the world. Now I might not be able to achieve as much as he did but if I want to change how we treat black people, that change needs to start with me. As I change whether I am protesting peacefully, standing and protecting my black brothers and sisters or maybe giving speeches like MLK, I can set an example of how we can treat those of another color. My hope is that my example can influence those around me. But nothing is going to happen if you and I don’t change or stand up for those that are mistreated. Once Martin Luther King Jr. told us about his dream and now I will tell mine. I have a dream that one day we will all be able to live in peace. That we will all be able to look at a different color of skin and not feel fear, anger or hate. I have a dream that one day we will all not have to ask “Where is the love?”