A Young Black Mind – What’s Going On

“I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” — Malcolm X

Since I was younger, I have been studying Malcolm X. He was a big part of the civil rights movement to me. Not many people know how wise Malcolm X really was. While Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech was playing, I was too busy reading Malcom X’s book. I watched the movie about him and saw his assassination. Being killed in front of your kids is a terrifying thought, but before it happened, he smirked.

As I got older, I realized his smirk before he got killed was not weird, not at all. Malcolm had gone on the record many times saying he would be killed. To me, I take his smirk as “I knew this would happen, I accept it.” Which is really like Nat Turner, who stepped outside the boundaries to lead a slave rebellion in 1831 knowing he would be killed. What I really like about Malcolm is that his love for what he was doing outweighed any fear of dying.

I cannot stress this enough and I know I am not the only one who is tired of repeating it: Black Lives Matter point blank PERIOD. I cannot even scroll down on Instagram or Twitter without hearing someone cry, or someone getting angry at the fact that it has been over 500 years and we are still fighting and tired. I am worried for my friends, my brothers, my family, and all Black kings and queens. We cannot be violent because an eye for an eye and the world goes blind. We cannot be peaceful because they would not understand or even listen to what we have to say. So, what are we supposed to do?

All we need is a little bit of brightness in our lives because everything is already crashing down on us with Covid-19 and being away from family members. I am not saying that all Caucasians are bad because I have made many white friends who would really stick up for me and stand up for me in the process. They understand how angry and tired I and my people are, and they support me and check up on me every day. I have met a whole lot of nice people in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Arkansas. Some of them I still talk to today. But I have also met a whole bunch of people who were not nice.

I remember when I was hanging with one of my friends (well, past friend) and her father was coming back from the bathroom and walked over to her and said, “You are still talking to that Black girl?” I was offended as I realized he did not know my name. My friend did not say anything to her father, but her mom tried telling him to sit down and eat. But, of course, he did not listen. He came towards me using stereotypes, saying that I was a threat to his family. But he said something specifically that my anxiety loves to bring up whenever she wants to: “You are going to be hanging from one of these trees around here.” That was the last straw for me… I wanted to say something back, but my friend’s brother defended me. You know, the typical “I have a crush on my sister’s best friend, and I am going to help her” type of defending. My friend and I have not talked since that incident. Her brother, well, he was kicked out of the house for that. I hope he is okay.

People want to know what I have been thinking, but the thing is that I do not know what I am thinking. I just want all of this to stop. When I was a child, my parents gave me information so I could learn to read, learn to be an athlete, learn to play an instrument. I had to be smarter not just to be better but to stay alive. As a teenager, even after that incident at my former friend’s house, I have been trying to figure out how to present myself as non-threatening. As I tear up writing about this, I realize it should not be like this. If a group of people is saying “Please stop killing us,” you should agree. This has been a problem since we were brought here.

Unarmed people getting murdered in the street, being shot 41 times in the back just trying to get in their door, being taken away from their family and beaten and thrown into the river for alleged harassment, being killed for having a fake weapon, and finally, being murdered by police inside your home while sleeping in your bed, where you are supposed to be safe. We have never had things easy for us. The goal for us has always been to survive amongst people who might not want us to survive.

There’s blood in the streets, no justice, no peace. No racist beliefs, no rest ‘til we’re free.