The battle that black people fought to gain their freedom didn’t end with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.
The murder of George Floyd at the hands of unjust police officers has sparked a new revolution of people of all races coming together to fight for equality for black people.
Across all 50 states and even in countries outside of the U.S., diverse groups of people are banding together to protest racism and police brutality.
Videos have been posted on Facebook of white people using their bodies to shield black people from police on the front line of these protests.
It’s not enough to remove the chains from black people’s hands if they still can’t put their fists in the air and say: “My life matters.”
How ridiculous does it sound to say that people are targets of hate speech and even murder because their skin is a different pigment than other peoples’?
This has to stop.
We have a job to do.
It’s every privileged person’s duty to fight for and with the people who are beaten down by oppression. It’s everyone’s responsibility with a voice to speak for those whose voices go unheard.
Racism is a battle that has gone on for far too long. Not everybody realizes that racism still exists because some people are privileged enough to not experience it.
A common argument against the Black Lives Matter movement is that “All Lives Matter.” While this is true, it shouldn’t be our current focus. All lives do matter, but if black lives do not matter to some, then all lives do not matter to all.
The murder of Floyd wasn’t the first injustice performed against black people by someone with a higher privilege. We aren’t ignoring the lives of other innocent black people lost to people that hold prejudices against them.
We’ve simply had enough.
The fight doesn’t end when the “trend” dies down. It doesn’t end when we forget about the murder of Floyd. This battle only ends when racism and injustice does.