Black Lives Matter – By Kaspar Elie

In June I attended one of the most surreal yet important events in my life. When you think of a BLM protest, I imagine you think of mobs of angry black men & women, causing violence and destruction against white people and their neighbourhoods. In some ways you would be right, but wrong in so many more.

This protest was organised by young teens, of which a large majority were white. Despite their youth, they were knowledgable, supportive and most importantly they were listening. They gave the people of the black community a platform to talk, shout and cry. They gave us a platform to express what racism means to us, how we have been affected and what we need from society to progress forward. I felt such a huge amount of pride and love throughout everyone involved despite this being an event that represents centuries of oppression, discrimination and pure undeniable hatred. To think there are people who would argue the rights of people like myself, or my family sickens me to my very stomach. To know that people out there that would fight to erase our existence terrifies me. And yet people ask “but what about all lives?” A question which I understand yet makes me laugh. That very question illustrates the entire issue at hand.

George Floyds murder signified the oppression we face from the white man. That a police officer would rather kneel on a mans neck for almost 9 minutes, killing him, rather than correctly perform his job as a guardian just because of the colour of his skin. Because we are seen as violent, poor, uneducated thugs. Because you want us to be anything other than your equal. Whole neighbourhoods were created to house poor black families, which became slums after the introduction of drugs and the reduction of local schools and jobs. We have been moulded and beaten into these convenient stereotypes for your disposal, treated like animals just for our darker skin tone.

But yet you steal our culture? Our words, our cuisine. You take our hair and our features and you cherry pick your fancy to discard the rest because it doesn’t fit your agenda. You ridicule us for our “crazy hair” and our “loud voices” but coo over your mixed race children like trophies. You cannot steal our culture but kill the people. You cannot have that which for so many years you have sought to destroy.

Racism to me is more than just the n-word. It’s the mockery of black men and women. The difference in white vs black murders involving police. The slurs. The ignorance. It’s pussyfooting around the issue, handing out tokenistic sentiments thinking that it erases the issue. You are the issue. Your mindset is the issue. The very belief that I am any less than you because of my skin is the issue.

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