I've contemplated writing this article primarily because I'm not one to make huge waves on social media, or at all for that matter. I think that's the problem though. I've never been faced with the opportunity to express my true feelings about my people and where we are and How We Got Here, cheap plug intended. What I mean by my people is black people, the black community as a whole. I don't know if I've expressed the upbringing I had but I'll give a synopsis. I grew up in a "black" neighborhood, but I went to a pretty diverse elementary school, and a predominantly white middle school. The phrase "I didn't see color" growing up does not work here because I mean it was obvious, I was black and other people were white. Growing up though, I floated toward White people more for some reason. I had mostly white friends and I listened to "white music", whatever the hell that is, and I was into the alternative and not the black status quo at the time. Even as far back as daycare I went to a predominantly white center. So you can see where me having a racial bias just doesn't make any sense, but I digress, I'm writing this article to try and understand why even now there's still a racial division amongst White people and Black people. We all bleed the same, so why don't people understand that. So here we go, this is How We Got Here: The Racial Divide

I'm not going to start with slavery and Civil Rights because quite frankly I label that time as "old racism" and you'll see why I say that later on. I'm going to be talking about the "new racism" the racism that kind of creeps up on you. The racism that you have to take a step back and think about "did I just hear what I think I heard?". These days racism hides and peaks its head in certain situations, but that definitely doesn't mean that its no more present that it was 80 years ago. I think that there are many reasons why racial division seems to peak its grimy head in the 21st century. One reason is that "understanding" Black people has never been necessary to the survival of White people. Understanding how Black people think or feel has few implications for a White person's employment prospects, housing, education, or even access to food. Sheer necessity has forced Black people to be more attuned to what White people do or think. There have been stories of news anchors having to cut their hair or style it a different way because it's not professional, or people not getting jobs because of names like Tyrone or Shaquita, granted the latter is for sure a "different" name, but why does a name dictate the skills of an individual?

Then we have mass media parading stories about "thugs" in the streets fighting against authority and deserving to be shot while unarmed. Why does every black person that's in the news have to be a thug? Because of these stories and these articles, I have to go back to the point I made earlier about black people having to become chameleons in this world. We have to stray away from the culture in order to fit in, in order to even get a fair shake at opportunities. We have to fit a mold so that some White employers will give us a an equal opportunity. We have to essentially become something in order to achieve something. This is that new racism I'm talking about. Stripping Black people of their culture in order to fulfill the "White Agenda". It's scary to think that I can't blast Kendrick Lamar down in my car down a street without a Cop or a racially insensitive White person giving me a death stare, but If I'm riding with my White fraternity brother he can blast Trace Adkins and people don't bat and eye. It's the subtle things that black people notice that give us that OMG moment.

We all need to change, Black people and White respectively. As Black people we have to realize that not everyone is racist, and we can't chalk up missed opportunities to racism, and some White people have to realize that not everyone one black person is the same, and that the fear of the unknown and the different shouldn't dictate the perceptions of a people. We are all the same, we bleed the same, we go through some of the same situations, and it's about time we all realized this

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