"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -Martin Luther King Jr.

The Year is 2016 and I turn on the news to a scene you’d believe be from the 1950s.

Another man with African blood is lying dead in the streets. His body defaced with bullet holes; his dignity stripped of him as he becomes another side show attraction. Dead at the hands of the man who said the oath to protect and serve…

How could the country that praises itself to be the home of the free, land of the brave, home of equality stand by idle as their black and brown citizens shed unjustified blood in the streets?

This… what I am witnessing in 2016… is modern day lynching…

How could this be reality? Sad to say but this is our reality.

Time and time again we have witnessed police officers play judge and jury, taking God's plan into their ill trained hands. Murder in cold blood to just be sent home on a paid vacation while families mourn and plan. Plan funerals for those who had futures and plans. Plans to become something in life, plans to be great fathers, mothers, productive members of our society. They will never get the chance to be all that they could be all because of a weapon everyone claims to not see.

Race??? My black skin is a weapon to you. The very thing that makes me who I am is threatening to you?? Funny, because when I see that man with that badge I get shook; scared. Not because I am a criminal but because I was born with a weapon I cannot conceal, a weapon I cannot shed. My skin.

My people for centuries have been portrayed as the enemy which is crazy to think when we know this “great” country’s history. This country’s history of mistreating, misusing, dehumanizing, and murdering people of color is a tale for all to know. In the age of information ignorance and bigotry is a choice. My people have endured countless acts of injustice throughout this country’s history. It is a mystery to me how this country has sat back for centuries and allowed this genocide of black and brown people to continue.

From 1619 when the first slaves arrived until now what can we say has changed? Well, we are no longer physically enslaved by our masters but emotionally, mentally, psychologically we are indeed slaves. Slaves to the everyday blatant disregard of life. Slaves to working their jobs, feeding their children, cleaning their houses, dribbling and throwing their balls every Sunday night! We are enslaved by the ways of the land. The pledge states that liberty and justice shall be for all but clear as day we know that to not be true. There has been no liberty and justice for all. Merely selling CDs, playing loud music and having car troubles. Having a voice shouldn’t be a death sentence but sadly that is the truth for my people. Gunned down, silenced and turned into a hashtag.

So forgive me for not being patriotic, for exposing this country’s deadly ways instead of praising or ignoring. Forgive me for being tired, scared, fed up. We cannot ignore any longer. We are at a crisis and enough is enough.

So please wake me when I am free, because the year is 2016 and I’m not sure if I am in fact…Free.