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Imagine being Black in America. Just for one sec-
ond imagine being the target of hate crime after hate crime
over something that you had no say so in whatsoever, the
color of your skin. Imagine being called “ghetto” over and
over again just for your White counterparts to do the exact
same thing and it to be called “stylish”. Imagine looking
up “unprofessional hairstyles” on google and seeing all of
your beautiful melanated brothers and sisters popping up
one by one, but when you type in “professional hairstyles”
you can’t find one person that looks like you. Imagine a
lie being told about you saying that you “whistled at a
white woman” and that being the reason you are killed and
then thrown into a river in the dead of night. Imagine
walking home with a pack of skittles and an Arizona tea
but on the way being harassed and killed for what? Because he looked suspicious walking to
his house? The list just goes on and on. But just imagine, being Black in America. You see for
some of us we don’t get to imagine because this, this is our life.
Emmet Till, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor,
George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Dreajson Reed, Elijah McClain and so many more that have
died at the hands of murderers. It seems as if every time we open our phones another unarmed,
innocent African American man or woman is being killed just for the color of their skin. Every
day we decide to leave our homes we have to face the fact that we may not return. But what
happens when our homes, the one place that we feel safe, is the one place that we end up being
killed in. Or what if on our daily run we are targeted and gunned down. Or what if after being
pulled over for a traffic violation we are arrested, killed in police custody and then it is over-
looked because somehow it was ruled a “suicide”. You see, in America, the “land of the free
and home of the brave” we have to face the harsh reality that African Americans have never
been free.
When I look at the world through my two eyes and examine my community, I see so
much pain. I see anger, frustration, sadness, lost hope, and disappointment. Disappointment in
a world that was never built to love us anyway. And as terrible and disheartening as that may
seem, that is what we have to come to terms with. In the past couple months I cannot tell you
how many times I have cried out to God for help in my community. I have prayed over and
over that He would protect my people and help us to finally see freedom from oppression. That
he would soften the hearts of those that hate and allow them to see why we are crying and see
why we are so angry. When I look back over recent protests that have begun and the steady
progress that we have made I have found that our oppressors have begun to attempt to silence
us. When we ask for the murderers of Breonna Taylor to be arrested and instead are given a
street named after the “Black Lives Matter” Movement there is something wrong there. We are
being bribed for our silence, but we will not be silenced again. We will breathe again; we have
to breathe again. For those that come after us and for those that died before us, fighting.
So next time I hear “All Lives Matter” I hope that you understand my frustration. I hope
you understand that this statement simply cannot be true. In a world where for years African
American lives have not mattered, in a world where we are constantly having to explain why
our lives are worth saving, in this type of world, you have to understand that every life cannot
matter until our lives matter too. Until we no longer feel the need to scream at the top of our
lungs that “Black Lives Matter” America will never be the land of the free, at least not for me.