A few weeks ago I read a fictional book by Jodi Picoult called Small Great Things. It was about a Black nurse who was told by a white supremacist not to touch his baby. When the baby falls ill in the hospital the nurse battles with her instructions from her boss not to touch the infant, and her moral responsibility as a nurse. The story is mostly based on the lawsuit the nurse faces, the white lawyer representing her who is oblivious to racial oppression and the skinhead who hates the nurse for the color of her skin.

What I love about Jodi Picoult's novels are the multiple perspectives. She did a beautiful job bringing racial issues to the table through her black character and revealing the ignorance society has to racism through her white character.

Fast forward about two weeks. I was asked to cover a story on a silent student protest on campus held by a Black activist group. I went to the protest, took pictures and prepared to ask questions, but found myself outraged by the stories I heard of oppression, mistreatment, and inequality.

I wanted to get involved. I wanted people to open their minds to the movement. I wanted these amazing men and women to be treated fairly and have the same opportunities as everyone else. But the more research I did, the more interviews I conducted, the more angered I was with the people around me.

I've heard a lot, and I've read a lot about the movement, racism, racial inequality, predjudice, and statistics backing up the fact that a BLM movement is exactly what this country needs. A lot has shocked me, but nothing compares to the blind eyes staring at this crisis.

People are under the impression that Blacks live off the system.

But the thing is, they don't. Many minorities live in low-income and poverty areas, but two-thirds of welfare actually goes to white people. Food stamps, government housing, and assistance is going to many more white people than Black people, yet everyone is still under the impression that people of color screw the system...why? And how? Based on research and statistics, it seems that the system is screwing people of color.

"BLM is just a way for Blacks to separate themselves from society"

Really? People rallying for equal treatment and opportunities, literally holding signs that read "treat me equally" is a way to separate society? That just doesn't sound right to me.

During an interview I conducted, I was shown a video of a PASTOR who bashed the movement, claiming that those involved were "dividing the country and creating a war, trying to separate the nation from God." He made the movement sound selfish, petty and unimportant, yet Black men with a college degree still have less of a chance to get hired than a white man without a degree. Minority schools are still underfunded. Black men and women earn less money than white men and women for the same work. Yet...they are the reason there's racial division? I don't buy it.

"They get so many benefits just by being Black"

You mean minority scholarships and affirmative action? First of all, people get scholarships for being left-handed. They get scholarships for having red hair. There are scholarships out there for people who make prom dresses out of duct tape, for people who have parents within a certain profession, have participated in a certain activity...and no one is complaining about those scholarships being unfair.

Affirmative action may have caused reverse discrimination in some cases, but how come no one is asking why affirmative action was needed in the first place? Why is no one wondering why we had to pass a law to give people of color a chance to put their education to use and receive the same pay as everyone else? Why is no one asking why it's harder for people of color to get loans and mortgages? Unless unequal opportunity is considered a benefit, I don't see how anyone could think this way.

People think they aren't a part of the problem, and even worse, they don't notice how minorities are treated so dramatically different.

Here is what I have noticed. When a white man walks into a store, grabs a drink out of the little refrigerator and opens it, no one says a word. When a Black man walks into a store he tells his kids to keep their hands in their pockets. He never thinks to open something before he's paid for it. Because if he did, he would be approached by a manager and asked to leave. How do I know this? Because I've seen it. I've heard about it from these men and women I've interviewed, more times than I can even fathom.

White people can get pulled over without the fear of being profiled. They can date whoever they want without worrying about that first family introduction where the "you didn't tell me they were Black" slips through someone's lips. They can walk down the street and not have parents pull their kids close and look at them with weariness in their eyes.

Racism is a problem, and those of us who aren't actively trying to create equality are a part of the problem. I have been so appalled by how quickly people tell me they aren't a racist, but they still don't acknowledge the fact that they have privileges people of color can't even fathom having. And forget about asking them to give up or share those privileges.

I want to end this post with a paragraph in the afterthoughts of Jodi's book because I can't imagine a better way to put this into words.

"Just as racism creates disadvantages for people of color that makes success harder to achieve, it also gives advantages to white people that are easier to achieve. It's hard to see those advantages, much less own up to them."

Untill we can realize, as a nation, that there is truth in institutionalized racism, and that movements like BLM are needed, we are all going to be a part of the problem.