Race vs. America
posted by Candace Butler | September 18, 2020 | In Opinion“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,” Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence boldly declares.
But are we really? Did Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers really mean that ALL men were created equal? If so, then why did they go on to enslave men that were just like themselves except in color?
What would the United States have been like if it were inverted? What if it were the white man that was enslaved and the Black man that was lord and master? If it were the white man and his women that were trapped, enslaved, and then forced across the ocean in the bondage of slavery? Would Americans still be exasperated with talking about slavery, race, and the wrongdoings that have been done to one race by another? Is it not time to confront our racial past now, instead, in order to finally right the wrongs of the past and push upon those who attempt to confront these harsh realities? We need to listen instead of labeling people who attempt to shed light on these issues.
The injustice didn’t come to an end with the abolishment of slavery or the enforcement of the thirteenth amendment. This doesn’t take away from the good that the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth amendments did and still are doing in today’s time, but racial injustice still has seen no end.
Some people pretend to live in a color-blind era and cite the election of President Obama as evidence. If America can elect a Black man as president, then there are no longer any limitations on what race has restricted people of all colors from achieving.
They are wrong! The election of one man of African lineage into the highest office doesn’t negate the institutional racism that is prevalent in this country which, in fact, still exists to this day. It doesn’t undo the police brutality and murders that have followed. It doesn’t undo the caste system of inmates that is steadily increasing with Black and Brown faces.
We don’t get to tell people how to protest or what to protest. If you want to protest the injustice of Cannon Hinnant, a white five-year-old boy, shot riding his bike by a neighbor in Wilson, NC, according to CNN, what exactly is it that you would be protesting? This is an isolated occurrence. Yes, it’s a terrible thing that should have never occurred. But how can we stop this from happening to another little boy? What do you suggest that we change to stop this from happening again?
Furthermore, injustices such as Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black EMT shot by police in her bed in Lousiville, Ken., and George Floyd, a Black man killed by police in Minneapolis, Minn., are happening every day. The man who allegedly shot Cannon was arrested the day after Cannon died. It took a week for one of the men accused of killing Floyd to be arrested. The police who allegedly shot Taylor are still free to come and go as they please. Why are Taylor’s alleged murderers not brought up on charges against them?
Some people ask: how we can support the protestors and the violence that ensues?
President Trump wants to “make America great again.” He has a nostalgia for a time when white men could say whatever they wanted, and women and minorities had to cower and say “yes sir” to him.
He knows it wasn’t “great” for women or people of color. He yearns for the days when he can gripe, and insult women while they would just stand there and take it because they were powerless to do anything else.
Those days are over. The fact that he’s doing everything he can to bring those days back will not happen without a fight.
Yes, people are fighting back. Rioting is American. What did you think the Boston tea party was anyway? When Martin Luther king was murdered. People rioted for weeks. Then, the civil rights bill was passed.
It’s not my place to tell people how to protest the needless murders of their brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Trump declared war; all they did was rise to that call.
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