“Black Lives Matter” – What Does That Mean?

It has been 57 years since MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s about 3,000 weeks and over 20,000 days and we still have so far to go until we realize his dream. You’re telling me that America is one of the strongest countries in the world, and it has been 57 years and his speech still hasn’t sunk into our hearts?

My name is Amaya Kincaid. I am 14 years old and I am growing up in a world where I have to question every morning if I will end the day with my dad in my life, or if he will get shot on his next jog. I have only been alive for 14 years. But, in those 14 years, I have dealt with racial discrimination far too many times. When I was in fourth grade, the boy next to me told me to move because I wasn’t light enough to sit next to him. Being nine, I was confused, yet I moved to the next table. At nine years old, I was told that I wasn’t “good enough” to sit at a desk next to another kid. Now, at 14 years old, I am still being told that I don’t deserve to be treated equally because my skin isn’t light enough.

In 1865, the 13th Amendment officially abolished slavery in all of the U.S. It has been about 155 years, yet I still feel like I don’t belong. I still feel like an outcast because my skin is not the color people want it to be. I don’t feel comfortable in my own home, or what I called home. People of America, is that how you want me and every other kid like me to feel? So unsafe in our own country to the point where we feel that we don’t belong? Is that your goal? That is the message that you and others are sending me, a 14-year-old girl with dark skin, growing up in America. I tremble at the thought of a Black man getting his neck stood on in Minneapolis, a man getting shot while on a run, a woman drowning her own son and then blaming it on two Black men, and a youth pastor claiming he was kidnapped by Black men because his morals are too messed up to just admit to why he was in a hotel room. Four cases that have happened in the last few days, four cases that are absolutely heartbreaking.

When I hear MLK’s “I Have a Dream,’’ I interpret that if you had two people standing in front of each other, that they would be two people completely equal in every way. That you wouldn’t see a white person, a Black person, an Asian person, a Hispanic person, or a Muslim person. You just see someone who is equal to you. On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King said:

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Those exact words apply today. I have read that paragraph six times and every word reminds me of a different life that was taken.

Here’s my dream. I dream that one day we will be able to see each other as people, that every skin color is appealing or good enough for the other race. I dream that we will accept every gender, size, any sexual preference, any skin color, and everything that makes us all different. I want to one day be able to tell my children what happened in 2020 and have them respond with “Wow, mom, the world has changed so much since then!” I want my children and grandchildren to be proud to be an American, but if I’m not proud, then how do I teach my children to be? We can’t wait for change because we ARE the change. This is America, and we should be ashamed.

My heart, prayers, and condolences go out to all of the victims’ families. I pray that you get the justice you deserve.
We love you and we mourn with you and we are here for you.