What do the terms black and white mean to you personally? Long before my knowledge of unjust daily shootings involving black Americans and police officers, videos of whole cities ablaze on the news, and recent protests of our National Anthem, these particular words didn't have any meaning to me, unless I was thinking about Oreos. Of course, I was under the age of ten, but more often than not, I long for that sense of innocence again.
My best friend of 13 years, Mia Crawley and I, met in preschool. Yes, Mia is black and I am white. For years we never questioned each other's race because we never saw any significance in it. We didn't see any difference between us; all that mattered at the time were our imaginations and the games we made up. Some days we'd kick a soccer ball for hours until it was too dark to see. Others we'd pretend to fight villains after watching our favorite Disney channel show, Kim Possible. I can only imagine now what the neighbors must've thought as they watched the two of us punching and jumping into the air screaming, "Hi-Ya!" as we dodged deathly laser beams in the front yard.
One day, this changed and we realized that we were in fact a little more different than just our preferences in the sports we played. I went to her house to sleepover and have a movie night; something we did almost every weekend. We had set up our beds in what they call the den of their house and put on the 2007 version of the movie, Hairspray. If you've never seen Hairspray, it is a musical set in the late 1950's, early 1960's, and deals with racism and other problems mostly through song and dance.
The word negro is used quite frequently in that particular movie. I had never heard that word before and didn't know what it meant. My family had certainly never used it before or any other degrading words for that matter. So me being my naïve ten year old self, asked, "Mia what does the word negro mean?" Her older sisters and mother were in the room, and they were quiet. Mia looked at me and said, "I don't know Emma, but don't ever say it in public because you don't know who will hear it and take it the wrong way."
Now, Mia and I are 18 years old, both freshman in college, and are very well aware of our country's history and the brutality that occurs daily. Constant headlines of an unarmed black man being killed, or a police officer shot because he was simply wearing a badge, cover the media. Protests and riots erupt in an effort to change the way America is. One by one, athletes are taking a seat when asked to rise for the playing of the National Anthem. The United States of America was founded in 1776. It is 2016.
People are starting to get fed up.
Our country is said to be the "land of the free, and home of the brave." When you watch the news and read articles of people saying that they're afraid for their lives just because of what color their skin is, that statement is kind of hard to believe. So I hope someday, someday soon, our country can finally stand as one, without death and violence. And I hope that you'll be able to think the way Mia and I did when we were ten years old, that there is no known color of superiority. And in our friendship, there never will be.
