Citizens of Ferguson felt heartache and unrest from the moment white police officer Darren Wilson pulled the trigger, killing 18 year old African American Michael Brown on Aug.9 in Michigan.
The racial riots that proceeded Brown’s death originally captured the nation’s attention. However, after a few weeks, America turned it’s other cheek as a result of the captivating news of Kim Kardashian’s latest picture of her derriere.
A family was grieving the loss of a son, people were dying, chaos was widespread throughout the streets of the St. Louis suburb, but I guess Kardashian’s butt was just as important.
It is time that we put aside the superficial entertainment shows and confront the true problems our country faces. We have elected an African-American president into office, we have seen our first African-American supreme court judge, senator, astronaut yet young unarmed African-American males are still gunned down by Caucasians all in the name of upholding the law.
We as Americans need to find what true equality really means in the face Trevon Martin’s and Michael Brown’s murders. The racial protests that have ensued from these deaths have truly reflected how divided America really is on the issue of race and how we as a Nation not only need to heal but need to change and grow.
I would like to believe we live in a world where racism doesn’t exist, that blacks are equal to whites as per the 1964 Civil Rights Act. However, being from a bi-racial family, I have experienced first hand that this is just simply not the case. Stereotypes regarding race still infect our culture.
We need to ask ourselves, how can we as a nation truly eradicate these notions and replace them with open-minded acceptance? Only then can we expect to see true change.
We need to have an active roll in the laws that govern our nation. It is evident that the Stand Your Ground laws are not effective in promoting equality. The laws need to be revisited and perhaps amendments can be voted in to truly protect the unarmed victims. In the case of Treyvon Martin, we need to effect change of the “stand your ground law,” when the armed person is the person who initiates the confrontation. In other words if you are armed and you are the initial aggressor the law needs to reflect punishment for such behavior.
