Hand in Hand

I am proud of the country that I live in, but I am also equally scared by it.  We live in a country that could possibly see Donald Trump as its Republican Nominee for President.  A country that celebrates Women’s Equality Day while only giving women 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, a country where police beat and kill black men and women, a country that has the highest rate of gun deaths, and a country where its leaders can barely agree on a lunch order let alone a budget.  This being said, we are still an amazing country and we have come a long way since our beginnings.  We are a country based on sacrifice, pride, hope, and dreams.  Our foundations are built on the core principles of liberty and freedom, but are also built on the backs of people we owned.  America as a whole is great, extremely flawed, but great.  We can never forget where we come from, both good and bad, because if we do we immediately forget where we are going. 

One of our biggest problems as a country is race relations, which is really just a catch all that white people (like I am doing now) use because we can’t think of anything else to say.  The most recent attacks on black Americans by white police officers has sparked a whole new round of anger and thank God it did.  The internet has brought some terrible things (Josh Duggar had it coming), but one of the best things it has created is a forum for discussion that our parents couldn’t have even dreamed of.  Where people from across the country can argue and debate topics that hid away in southern textbooks and behind words like “pride” and “American right”.  Today, we are still an incredibly unequal society, but we can never forget where we came from.  One of my mentors was eating lunch with me back in February and the topic of “race relations” came up.  My mentor, an African American man 30 or so years removed from his childhood in the slums said to me, “I understand all of these protests, but anyone born today needs to remember that they aren’t lynching my family anymore.”  Now I know that a lot of people would say that we have replaced a rope noose with a policeman’s barrel, but the point he was trying to make was that even with our major problems today, they aren’t as bad as they were yesterday.  Within our own parent’s lifetimes the mass population went to segregated schools, there was no equal rights act, and black kids were met with water hoses just for sitting in a cafe.  We have come a long way, but we still have an awfully long hill ahead.  We can’t climb it alone.  

I have seen a lot of people talk about the #blacklivesmatter movement and fight back with things like #policelivesmatter.  I have seen the students for life campaign #CallhimEmmett trying to compare the brutal assassination (and yes it was an assassination, not just a murder) of Emmett Til for hitting on a white woman to modern day abortion.  I have also seen arguments from both sides of the debate (I hate that people in the media still call it a debate) that see the opposite position as demons.  This type of narrative doesn’t help anyone.  Yes, police lives do matter, but #blacklivesmatter doesn’t negate that.  The purpose of the movement is to shine light on a massive issue.  Police lives do matter and when an officer is gunned down in the line it is a tragedy.  But the movement is trying to make a point of the disenfranchised, of the people who are being innocently murdered by the dozen.  I saw a great meme the other day (I cannot believe I just wrote that), it is the picture on your left.  I think it is an apt stereotype representation of some of our current perception issues, but I would add another picture.  One of a police officer murdering a black teenager and the other of an officer working the beat, protecting and serving.  One is how many of us see them, the other is how they actually are (again I understand this goes against the purpose of the meme but I am just trying to prove a point).  On the left we see the small population and on the right we should see regular people going about their lives.  We need to fix this meme.  However fixing the meme will take a lot more work than just an hour on photoshop.  It will take all that this great nation has to offer.  It will be hard and it won’t come easy.  It cannot be done by a hashtag on twitter.  It must be done by the black teenager and by the white police officer.  We must join hands to fix this problem together.  It sounds like a difficult road.  It sounds like a dream.  

On this date, fifty-two years ago, Dr King was right when he told us of his dream.  When he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he was speaking about the very fight that stands in front of us today.  “I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists…one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers”  Take out the words “Alabama” and replace them with Ferguson.  Take out little black boys and black girls and put in Black American Citizens and take out little white boys and white girls and put in the police department.  It sounds incredibly hard, but that’s why it's a dream.  I still have hope; perhaps you do as well.  So on this day of memory let us look back on yesterday and salute those who have paved the road from which we must continue their struggle.  “Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.  And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.  It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”