Black Lives Matter

So I’ve been debating whether or not I was going to write this blog, and after contemplating it for over a week, I knew that I had to.

Its so sad that in the 21^st century we (black people) still have to fight for civil rights almost 60 years after the Civil Rights Movement. This is unacceptable!!!!! And it makes me mad, it makes me so angry. That an innocent black man with a license to carry a weapon, with no criminal record could be shot in his car in front of his girlfriend and his 6 years old daughter for no reason. I’m disgusted that this is still happening in 2016. That a man selling CDs outside of a supermarket is wrestled to the ground by 3 police officers, whilst a gun is pressed to his chest and is shot 6 times. These men are brothers, sons, and fathers. Children now have to grow up fatherless, not because their fathers choose to leave them, but because they were taken away for no reason. I thought the world had moved on from this. I thought we were in the better, brighter future that Martin Luther King dreamt about, but apparently not.

What upsets me the most is that so many people seem to misunderstand what #blacklivesmatter is. Blacklivesmatter doesn’t mean that only black lives matter, that it okay for the police to kill innocent Asians, Muslims or any other ethnic group. It means that as a community, we see that there is a problem with police brutality towards black people and we’re addressing the issues. It doesn’t mean that we values black lives over white lives. It just means that we want our black lives to have the same worth as white lives. We want to be treated like human beings and we want justice in place of injustice.

In 2016, we should be able to wear a hoddie (Trayvon Martin), make eye contact with a police officer (Freddie Gray), walk home with a friend (Gregg Gunn), to ride a train (Oscar Grant) without being shot. Without being brutalised by those who are supposed to serve and protect you.

To be honest, I am more afraid of the American police force than I am of ISIS, and this has to change. The world needs to change. Attitudes towards and the treatments of black people needs to change. We want justice.