My Responsibility As An American | The Odyssey Online
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Politics and Activism

My Responsibility As An American

My personal duty as an American citizen.

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My Responsibility As An American
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When I am asked the question "what is your responsibility as an American?" I automatically think of the racism that is smothering our country. My job is to bring awareness to those who don't fully understand The black lives matter movement. It brings a lot of pain to me when I see the ignorance that surrounds me. I see a lot of people who do not understand what the black lives matter movement is. When they hear "black lives matter" they automatically get defensive and utter back "but all lives matter" yes it is true that all lives matter, but that was never questioned. The police brutality that is shown in our country, has left us with the question, is it seen that black lives actually matter? apparently not because we're killing them left and right. The lack of understanding that citizens in our country have is painful. The fact that our police who are supposed to be protecting us are instead killing, needs to be seen. No, not every cop is bad. But we need to focus on getting the cops who are bad out of the forces. When innocent men are killed, and the media goes back 12 years before to find one single mistake that person made, sickens me. Because that is racism. That is a part of what is wrong. That is not justification for killing an innocent man. The frustration has been built up for so long we are pushing men and women to burn down their own towns in a sign of protest. At what point do we stop pushing? We need to stop asking "why are they burning their towns down" and start asking "why are we pushing them to do this." My responsibility is to actually make a change. I cannot fathom the thought of waking up another day with another report of an innocent person dying.

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