I think the really scary thing is that this incident is something that my parents would tell me about when I was younger. When my parents talked to me about racism, I was always told that things have improved, yes, but it’s still there. I would hear stories about segregated bathrooms and all of the injustices they grew up with. But they’d tell me that things have improved. There were marches and protests and great people who fought to get us where we are now. Racism is still there, yes, but things have improved.
The scary thing is that I’m repeating the same words they told me all those years ago. I’m 31 years old and the things I say are the things I grew up hearing. And while, back then, my parents could really say things had gotten better and mean it, because they were alive when black people had to move to the back of the bus, use a different water fountain, and going to school with white kids warranted national news coverage…
… can I really say things have improved in my generation?
I mean think about it. Really think about it. The only separation of bathrooms I have to deal with are male and female. I can sit wherever I want on the bus. I went to a predominantly white college. The changes my parents saw I am benefiting from, so when they said, “There’s still racism but things have improved,” they meant it. Which, to me, meant that we still had work to do, but we had accomplished something great. But what about my generation? What about the ones growing up and seeing the events of Ferguson? Can I really tell them, “Things have improved,” can I really say that? Black youth being killed is not a new thing. We still live in a time where not only can you be killed for the color of your skin, but chances are, your killer will walk free. Not only that, chances are, no matter how many times you explain why this is wrong, why you are sad, why you are fearful, you will be told you’re overreacting. And I think the really, really sad thing is that I’m seeing people younger than me not being surprised at all. Back then, when I was told that racism was very real, but there had been improvements, there was still a glimmer of hope in that sentence. There was hope because my parents knew that those improvements were true. They were there when history was made and things changed for the better. So I know they said that to me thinking that, yeah, we’ve made changes before, we can do it again.
But this cycle keeps happening. Again and again. And I’m looking at these posts and these people younger than me are so full of pain, and hurt, and cynicism about the world we live in. There’s no, “racism exists but there’s been improvements,” because honestly… have there been?
It might be hard to believe, but I think there have been. You know why? Because we are all aware of the problem. We are all tired of seeing this happen. We are tired of being told that we’re overreacting and instead of nodding in agreement, we speak louder. I think this generation is channeling the ones before us, the ones who marched, the ones who didn’t take things lying down. People don’t understand where we’re coming from? Then we’ll show them. We’ve benefited from our past brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, and we know where we come from, we know their struggle, their history, and we are determined that this cycle doesn’t keep repeating.
And I think the really great thing is that it’s not just us saying it, it’s not just my black friends and family speaking these words. I go through posts and see these white faces getting tired of this shit, too. It’s not just us saying it, protesting it, marching about it. It’s not just us on T.V. pouring our hearts out. I go through Facebook and see my white friends talking about injustice, about white privilege, about things being unfair for me, about how it makes no sense that their black friend’s lives aren’t valued. I have a white partner who came in and hugged me over this verdict, because she knew how unfair it was. I see white newscasters calling bullshit on everything, I see popular white faces pointing out the problems and lamenting on how unfair it is that, because their friends or coworkers are black, then have more to worry about. I think that there have been improvements because, yes, there are some people who don’t get it, but the amount of people who do get it is overwhelming, and that gives me a glimmer of hope.
I have hope because I’m not the minority in thinking that this is unfair.
I have hope because I’m not the minority in thinking that there needs to be a change.
I have hope because when I see posts about it, there may be a handful of negatives, but the overwhelming positives make me think that maybe, just maybe, when I get to be my parent’s ages and say, “there have been improvements,” that I’ll mean it.
