At the end of this year, I want to be finished with the first half of my second year of college, maybe visiting my family during the holidays, and down 10 pounds.
What I don't want at the end of this year is to become a hashtag.
What I mean by that is every year, a Black man or woman is murdered by police officers. Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Sandra Bland, Freddie Grey, and so on. These deaths are becoming a pattern in our nation and it's to the point where the Bahamas are releasing a travel guide where they are telling their citizens to be careful while traveling to the U.S. and to be cooperative with the police due to the amount of homicides that has happened in the past few years.
It is scary to me to wake up in a world where Black people can't even walk down the street without someone watching them or they're stopped by an officer and asked where they are going. It's a horrible feeling when I am walking down the street and see a police car, I immediately get nervous. The police are supposed to protect and serve their communities, their cities, and the citizens that live there. They shouldn't harass, abuse, and murder them needlessly because they are people of color.
On top of the fear of being stopped by the police, I'm frustrated because of the issues I deal with being Black in America. I don't want to be nervous to speak up when people use the "N" word, especially if they're not Black. I have several acquaintances who are of Hispanic and European descent and they throw around the "N" word like nothing. It bothers me that they believe it is okay to use that word and it bothers me even more when Black people allow it.
It bothers me that every year, it's the same pattern:
Black Person is killed by police
People are outraged
There is a trial
Media attempts to make the victim look like a dangerous person while trying to make the police officer look like they're innocent.
More Black People are outraged
Case dismissed; suspect acquitted of all charges
Family suffers.
It's such a horrible cycle that needs to end, but people don't even know where to begin.
There's all this discussion and talk about what to do and how to solve this problem. Some are open to it, others just aren't. There are those who feel as if nothing will change and those who do are for social justice. We should all be social justice activists and fight to save those lives and avenge those we lost along the way.
This year, I will not be a hashtag. Not now, not ever.
You shouldn't be either.
