Every week it's just the same: I don’t know what I’m going to write about, I wait until the last minute, and I pray that something comes to me. Saturday at work, I was talking to my coworkers, trying to pre-brainstorm, when one of them told me to write about police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement. I cringed because I’m careful by nature and I tend to write about easy and more “cookie cutter” thoughts. I had an in-depth conversation and then I had a change of heart.

My job as a content creator at Odyssey is to bring causes to light, to fight for the people who can’t or don’t have a voice, and to encourage peple to be proud of what they think. Intelligence is a gift from God that one must never take for granted. Here it goes.

What #BlackLivesMatter means to an uneducated individual of a different ethnicity: It's a cult group, selfish; the message only applies to said black lives; and it is a "white hate group." What #BlackLivesMatter means: a movement working toward a world where "black lives are no longer systematically and intentionally targeted for demise." #BlackLivesMatter supporters don’t hate white people or police officers; they just want equal rights, justice for actions, and less threats. #BlackLivesMatter does not suggest or encourage violence; they want to fight for changes in the system instead of demonizing people. #BlackLivesMatter is a melting pot of diversity who want to stand up for those who have been marginalized, belittled, and left unable to stand up for themselves.

Before I had this conversation, I was the person who always believes that all lives matter, so why should we be become specific to just one group. Yet, I’m a 20-year-old, white female from a small conservative town in Southwest Missouri. I had never been surrounded by diversity until I began attending the University of Missouri Columbia. My first college roommate’s parents were immigrants from Africa, and Darlene is one of the best things to have ever happened to me. Darlene made me step outside of my comfort zone, trash untrue stereotypes, and become aware of culture differences that I would have never known being from a very rural small town.

With that being said, I’ve never been suppressed. I’ve never had to worry that if I were to get pulled over, I might get shot. I’ve never had to worry about the many feelings that people of another “race” have to feel and I don’t even like referring to others by their race. But the thing is that nobody should have to feel that way. I am always open to being enlightened about people’s thoughts and feelings, and I wish that my friends who might happen to not be white didn’t have to worry about common things such as their safety, their lives, and their families, but they do.

As my conversation with my coworker came to an end, he said, “If you don’t talk about it, how are people to know?” I’m a sucker for being a messenger, I like telling stories, I like impacting lives, and I like helping people. I will never be a true and true “black person.” I will never know what it's like to be a minority where you have to work a few jobs to just make it by because of the wage gap, or have to worry about your son, father, brother, or uncle getting killed due to misjudgment. I’ll never know what it's like to feel less-than because I’m not white. I’ll never know. Knowing that a large majority of my readers for my Odyssey page is also white makes me glad that you’ve come along to this article. You may not agree with my thoughts, and that’s fine, but I ask that you go, seek, and converse with someone who isn’t white and see if I’ve captured this group in an honorable way. I ask you to look at culture, race, and ethnicity with an open and kind mind. Do it because you’ll never know what God will open up in your life.

In absolutely no way, shape or form is this blaming our policemen or fellow officers who risk their lives -- my thoughts about police and shootings will make for another article at another time. I hope that I’ve correctly advocated as a white female what the #BlackLivesMatter movement really is all about because I was ignorant to it previous to today.

This quote has been on my heart while writing: “When we live in a country where people care more for an animal, a pet, than their fellow brother of another ethnicity or religion, we are drowning in malevolent hypocrisy and broken values and hardened heart. Silence on matters of injustice is complicity.”

Just because I don’t feel something or might not feel something that my fellow friend does, does not mean that what they feel is incorrect or wrong. We need to work together in our great nation that’s under God to fight for people, for justice, for change because we are all entitled to the freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition. (Shout-out to Mrs. Reaves because I didn’t even have to look that up; American Government really taught me a thing or two.) We are all brothers and sisters under Christ. Each day is a blessing that we shouldn’t have to worry if we will get shot at and killed, belittled or named, and made to feel different.

That is wrong. That is an un-American thing to do to people. Let’s make this place a little bit more like home and more comfortable to everyone. Let’s find it in our hearts to reach out to those and see if we can help to comfort and better their lives. Also, visit the Black Lives Matter page to find out more information for yourself. It was quite useful when I was writing this.

God Bless,

-Xx

Cass