The year is 2020. A time traveler wouldn't be able to tell the difference because Amerikkka is still denying black people the basic right to exist without being discriminated against, harassed, or murdered for the color of their skintone.
Call me naive but I've never really thought of being a black women in Amerikkka deeply before. Of course, I know that racism is serious and very much a thing, but in my little bubble of segregated school systems and public housing I've never come face to face with blatant racism. I've experienced micro-aggressions like being followed around a store with my friends in Times Square, or having a white person suddelnly trying to use slang when they're talking to me, and so much more that I probably haven't realized was racist yet. However, a white person making an assumption about me based on my race has never threatened my life. That's solely because I'm not around white people often. I live around and hang out with black people and other minorities.
I've been so far removed from ever experiencing blatant racism, that even after I saw black men constantly being murdered and becoming hashtags one after one it still didn't click for me.
Like any child, I saw myself as an individal. I knew I was black lmao, I'm no Zora Neale Hurston, but it just meant I was black. As I've gotten older and been exposed to more white people I realized that I'm not an individual to them. I'm a ghetto black girl. In one second I'm reduced to every stereotype they could ever think of. I hate that in that very moment that they spot me every ounce of individuality in me is drained from my body and replaced with the notion that I don't belong. See as a black person, you are generalized. They don't care if you're an EMT and you help save lives everyday, they don't care if you just wanted to go the the store for an Arizona and some skittles because this two dollars just created a sweet-filled snack, they don't care if you wanna play with your nerf gun and kill all the bad guys just like your favorite tv show villain, and they don't care if you can't breathe.
I want to have regular teenage problems. I want to go into H&M and make funny outfits with my friends without being talked about on the radios overhearing them say to "watch us". I want to be able to pick a college out in the midwest and not have to rule out certain states to because there's too many racists out there. I want to be able to not hold my breath every time a police siren begins flaring behind my mom's car while she's driving. I don't want be afraid for my life. I don't want racism to be an expectation.
I REFUSE to live in a society where I am hated because of my complexion. I refuse it. This shit has to stop. It starts with white people.
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