Eccentricity

The State We're In

Someone asked me "not to get started" on talking about the racial climate of our world today. But we need to get started on talking about it. We didn’t start during the slave trade. We didn’t start during segregation or Apartheid. Now it is 2016, I think it is about time to get started on talking about racial injustice.

My parents worked hard to get to where they are at today, and they brought me up believing that whatever you put in to the world is what you get back. If you put in hard work, you get back a reward, and if you don’t put anything in at all, you will get nothing back.

But they also taught me as a young African girl I had to work doubly as hard as anyone else to get half of what other people have. I resented that sentiment, but as I grow older I realise it is the sad truth of the time and age we live in. Where young African people who have emigrated from their country to a new one, or were born and raised in a country different from the heritage but they now call home, have to be subject to racial profiling by people who are meant to protect them.

And what is worse is the society that we live in today, established on the apathy felt towards black people, are the ones to blame for the state of our countries. Born into a world where the system is created to put down, divided, and destroy young black people it is not surprising that they live up to self fulfilling prophesies.

When born, we are all blank slates, ready to be moulded into something beautiful. However if you are constantly barraged with negativity such as ‘you won’t succeed, you’re useless, you’re a blemish on society’ you will end up believing it.

When a young man turns a gun on another young man, society will blame them. In actual fact it is societies fault. When you tell someone they will be born, live, and die in the same place never having a chance, they will never even reach for a chance.

Therefore I propose that instead of blaming black people for doing what you have told them to do all there lives, how about we as a society make a positive change.

Instead of you cant’s, say you can. Make opportunities for young black people to come up in the world, so we can see prominent black people in power. Let us not push people down, but lift them up. Educate. Give passion. Give a life. And one step at a time, our generation will be the generation that changes things, that makes a difference.

I pledge to try and make a difference. Will you?