After 57 years of the infamous Martin Luther's "I have a dream speech" on August 28, 1963, and 7 years since the induction of the #BlackLivesMatter movement on July 13, 2013, the grand question still exists, "Do Black lives really matter?"
On Sunday, February 23, 2020, shortly after 1 pm, a 27-year-old black man named Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by an armed white man and his son in South Georgia. He was on a jog a few miles around his neighborhood when he was shot.
May 25, 2020, almost exactly three months after, George Floyd was killed by a white Minneapolis officer, Derek Chauvin who kneeled on his neck for at least seven minutes. Sources revealed that he attempted to use a $20 bill that a grocery store employee identified as counterfeit. Police alleged that he "physically resisted" after being ordered to exit his vehicle, a claim that has been contradicted by video recordings.
One begins to wonder, "why do killings of black people still exist?" You would expect that since the advancement in time, technology, and human existence, things like this would be of the past. However, it seems as though nothing ever changed at all. I was discussing with someone in my apartment building today and he said, "Black people have always had to fight for everything. We fought for our freedom from slavery, we fought for equal opportunities and now we'll still have to keep on fighting against injustice."
Dear whoever is reading this ~ just know that you are loved and appreciated no matter what anyone says, I just had to chip that in. Though it seems at this point there's nothing we can do about it, we'll keep fighting. The labor of our forefathers will not be in vain. All our years of protest and incessant dying will not be wasted.
It's sad that it does not involve only killings. The struggles black people face every day without being killed is bad enough. Although anti-black racism was abolished in 1964, black people still have to struggle with discriminatory treatment from law-enforcement, major obstacles in securing housing, health care, and quality education, as well as experiencing irregularities in the justice system. To make matters worse, things have escalated under President Donald Trump. After people started protesting against the death of George Floyd, Trump thought it would be best to tweet calling the protesters, "thugs" and that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts", meaning that the police would be ready to shoot whoever protests in the streets, smh. Twitter had to flag his post as 'glorifying violence'.
Black people are not a threat!
Stop killing black people!
They have families,
They have lives to live and dreams to accomplish!
BLACK LIVES MATTER!!!
Comments