The media talks about Donald Trump way too much. I understand that he is the president, so clearly he is an important figure. But most sane and non-complicit people see that he says stupid and ridiculous things almost every day.

Every day when I watch the news, (it doesn’t matter what the topic it is) the media finds some way to bring the conversation back to Trump. I remember watching CNN over the summer after the Charlottesville incident, in which the vice mayor was on air to speak about how his community would overcome the horrible stain of white supremacy that tried to engulf his town. The vice mayor did not go out of his way to bash Trump for his response, or lack thereof, to combatting white supremacy in America. He didn’t berate Trump because that was not the issue at hand. The issue is that America has a clear race problem, but it has been ignored. However, the CNN anchor, as many other news channel anchors, was trying to steer the conversation back to Trump.

Trump is not the big bad wolf that we make him out to be. He is just a figurehead. The real issue is the warped way of thinking that many people have in our society. Some people think that it is OK to equate black NFL players to prison inmates. Or, we think it’s OK to shoot into a car of unarmed black boys, yes BOYS.

Instead of talking about Trump and glossing over issues of racism, the media should start talking about the real issues, such as why Trump was elected in the first place.

A lot of people in America clearly think that Trump’s rhetoric of racism, sexism, etc. is OK. But why is that? Well, for starters let’s look at the history of America. People were stolen from their homeland and forced to endure a long and agonizing ride at the bottom of a ship. And while on that ship, they were chained. They were fed slop. Many died from illness or were simply killed. Oh and on top of that, they couldn’t communicate with each other because they were from different tribes. This was done on purpose by slave catchers.

Then, when these scared people were finally able to get off of the ship they were SOLD as property. The chains that they wore on the ship caused terrible wounds on their wrists, so these “awesome” white men decided to put mud on their wrists to make “the property” seem more valuable. I’m nowhere near finished.

Then, there was a war because southern white slave owners wanted to keep their “peculiar institution.” Slaves were freed, but not for the reason that you think. Abraham Lincoln just wanted to hurt the Confederate Army. Then, we fast forward a century, and blacks in America still had to fight because…we just wanted some human decency.

I could go into even more detail about the shit that black people have and still do go through in America, but I’m not trying to bore you. Anyways, this is what should actually be acknowledged in America. Because once America acknowledges its rooted racism then maybe we can make some progress. Maybe… just maybe we could stop talking about Trump’s racist remarks and instead we could talk about the plight of the African diaspora and how it affects all Americans today.