The years 2015-2016 have been riddled with shootings, many publicized featuring white officers gunning down black men. Though some cases leave room for debate as to the root of the problem and the procedure in play, the bottom line is people are dying.
In today's society, media dissolves empathy. We are exposed to visual clips which mimic the "Now, This!" format, vomiting graphic content in a way that turns the screen black as quickly as a segment is introduced. Point, click, boom. Curtains closed. Because we watch these stories unfold through a less-than-a-minute video (It's better marketing, more likely to be viewed, don't you know?), we are unable to grasp the gravity of the situation at hand. Our country's most tragic moments are whispers quickly hushed by the shouts of PROUD AMERICANS, sharing no desire for a better day. We know nothing of brotherhood.
As a white, middle class female, I naturally struggled with the race argument for some time before grasping it; albeit I have only just caught it by the coattails. How can I, a person with many friends from different countries, backgrounds and beliefs call myself a racist? Perhaps because, while I make friends with those whose skin does not mimic my own porcelain canvas, I am guilty of researching the incarceration rate of black men, and correlating bad behavior to a bad upbringing in a bad neighborhood, by some bad black man who couldn't afford to teach his child a lesson in proper behavior.
Because at some point, I failed to realize that man's family grew up poor and uneducated, stricken from the battle for civil rights. That man was unable to spend as much time with his wife and kids as he deserved, because he had to work three jobs to make up a month's paycheck. Who would hire him, when he didn't have a college degree and was three times more likely to land in prison than a white man? This father was still a slave, though under wraps of the American Dream. He had freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but was clouded by the umbrella of a well established, white washed system of income inequality.
That man, and every black person must work harder to play catch up to those who, by nature, are afforded greater opportunity. Racial profiling occurs because on some subconscious level, we believe the roles media present to us, the statistics blur potential for common ground, and we fight with every fiber of our being the possibility that yes, we might just be racist by declaring the silencing phrase, "All lives matter!"
To put it simply, I will say this. Until you know what it means to check your speedometer every five minutes in fear that the extra mile might cost your life, you don't know prejudice. Until you know that any slight gesture of the hand could result in fatherless children, you don't know suppression. Until you explain to your child that her skin color is the reason she must never step a toe out of line, you don't know injustice. Until you can empathize with the suffering of millions in this dreadful year, you don't know brotherhood.
