A Culture Destroyed

Systemic Racism also known as structural racism is the normalization of racism within a society or organization. Many have made themselves believe this is a myth, however I am here to tell you this is a very real problem affecting thousands of people everyday.For those of you whom may not understand I want to provide a different perspective as well as an explanation as a young black woman in America. To do that first we must create some type of timeline.

Lets go on to acknowledge how many years of oppression people of color experienced during our time in this country. There’s no clear answer but if you start with the first documented arrival of slaves ,which was August 1619 in what is now Virginia , and use 1965, when Jim Crow laws were banned, as an “end point” that’s a total of 346 years . That means only 55 years ago from today every black person in America could officially be considered “equal”. You have to ask though how equal can black people be to people who had so many more resources and such better treatment for that many years?

Now here’s where people get quiet. I’m going to get into the gritty details of how systemic racism traumatically affects our culture today. If you oppress a specific group of people for that amount of time how long does it take to break that mentality? Months, years, decades ,if you ask me I’m sure it would be a lot longer then 55 years. 346 years of raping our men, torturing our children, stripping them right to read and write, and forcing our ancestors to work in the worst conditions for free. The sad part is this was all considered normal. How can you create a flourishing community with this as the foundation. I mean don’t get me wrong we are resilient. We have had some great break throughs from the first black president to the first black person to referee a Super Bowl game, but what about the majority? The point is why is it so hard for black people to get ahead why Is there so much black on black crime? There’s no easy way to explain but it all ties into the slave mentality built into this country and into the minds of the people. The real question is will America fix what they broken or would this be a problem that continues to go unnoticed? Who really knows but I want to be apart of the end of Systemic racism.

There’s no clear direction for a resolution but I honestly think it starts with freeing your mind. If people were more open to new ideas and had more compassion that would be a great start. Try to think outside of your bubble and understand not everyone lived the same life as you. One day I hope our leaders will come together and create a plan exclusively for the bettering of black communities nationwide. Let’s be the change.