Black Lives Matter
- Audrey Homlar
- May 31, 2020
- 3 min read
I was a part of the protest yesterday in Denver. One of the most beautiful and absolutely heart wrenching days of my life. I was there because a man was murdered. He was murdered in broad daylight, on camera, with people screaming at the perpetrator to stop. I cannot imagine how many times someone will so casually and with no objection from his fellow officers take a black or a brown person’s life because they will do it so nonchalantly on camera and with an audience.
In our society we value Black people and white people differently. It is clear in our neighborhoods, in our schools, in our workforce, in this current pandemic. According to the Joint Economic Commitee, research done by the United States Senate, in the year 2020, the median wealth held by Black families is $17,000 compared to a staggering $171,000 for white families, and this is a historical issue that stems all the way back to slavery and it’s abolition.
White Americans were able to accumulate wealth on the exploitation of Black people for the 150 years that slavery existed in America. When it was abolished in 1865, there was no leveling of the playing field and shortly after reconstruction, the Compromise of 1877 pulled the last troops out of the South that were not only protecting but were attempting to create an equitable environment for Black Americans. This led to sharecropping which was truly slavery by another name. Black Americans nevertheless grew in wealth and prosperity and attempted to reach positions of power, they were met with the lynchings of over 4000 Black Americans- a clear message that this would not fly and that white supremacy was indeed the only reality for America.
Jim Crow laws followed that relegated African Americans to a permanent second class legal status. Another more insidious way that white supremacy has continued to this day in our society is a line that was included in the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery and gave Black people citizenship, but stated that slavery would be allowed, “as a punishment for a crime.” The mass incarceration of Black Americans has followed and today 1 in 3 black men will go to prison in their lifetime. There are more Black people in jail than there were ENSLAVED in 1850.
I include all of this information because we are only products of our history. Our modern reality is not separate from this history. Also, it is my duty as a white American to know this history. To know why we are in our current situation. To understand fully why people are valued less in this society because it is a HISTORICAL issue. Justice, therefore, must include the mending of this history, meeting Black Americans needs today and that means listening to Black leaders first and foremost about the needs that must be met. White America has been violent towards Black people since the inception of the country itself. It is therefore the most hypocritical thing right now for any white person to criticize what Black people are doing in an effort to be seen. May I also add that peaceful demonstration has been met with a very similar animosity we see towards rebellion today. Colin Kaepernick was fired for simply kneeling. Martin Luther King Jr. was MURDERED. Martin Luther King himself said, “riots are the language of the unheard.” I am sick and tired of generations that refuse to fix what needs fixing, I am sick and tired of excuses, I will be out there with you all until the day that our founding principles are fulfilled. Until the day that ALL MEN (AND WOMEN) ARE CREATED EQUAL.
Comments