Today I was in class, I thought it would be appropriate to
speak with my fellow classmates. Be social like our universities want. I
immediately regretted that decision after making conversation with a boy in my
class. Getting back to my previous post, I also think ignorance is a problem in
our society. Ignorance of being open-minded to others, ignorant of learning and
adapting. I see this a major problem; from my own view point you cannot judge
another culture that you do not know about. Mind you, now if you do not want to
hear me rant about my own views please click away. I do not want to offend
anyone and I am doing this solely as a way to vent.
I myself am very open
minded and liberal to many topics, which I can tell can and will piss off a
person of conservative values. The boy I spoke with today told me how the Black
Lives Matter movement is causing more violence and killed people more than the
KKK. I did not mean to communicate politics with this kid, all I wanted to say
was hello and I was greeted with that.
Comparing the Black Lives Matter group and the Ku Klux Klan
was a really bold thing to say, especially in a class filled with various
amount of races, includes those of Latino and African descents. None of which spoke up to
this kid, who I can say did damage my eardrums with his voice. The Black Lives
Matter group is relatively new to the organized group movement as far as I can
remember; I couldn’t find any statistics showing members of the movement
killing people, not as much as the KKK. Whereas our history is filled with
white on black killings predominately in the South, being lynched and killed. I
myself didn’t want to start a political debate in class, let him go on about
what he knows, while he read news articles on Reddit.
Many believe the Black Lives Matter group is also a racist
group, like the KKK. I have no idea where this perception came from. I feel as
though the Black Lives Matter movement is a group of minorities who are trying
to put emphasis that they matter AS WELL, not more than another. Why is it
racist when a group of black people march down the street and scream to
considered equal to a race that has always been dominant in America. I see it
as people who are trying to gain a seat the table of America that was
predominately white. Trying to break the whites’ supremacy is scary to those
who have survived and lived on the supremacy and they see the Black Lives
Matter movement as a threat. Does anyone remember the Tulsa Race Riots that occurred
in 1921? No? Well a group of whites, went to a wealthy black community and
burned the city down, leaving over 10,000 black homeless and killed between
30-500 people, the exact number is unknown. The reason, they suspected a black
man attacked a white woman on an elevator. The uproar happened because of the
thought of a white woman being touched by a black man. The thought of a black
man touching a white woman caused a section of the city to burn down. When the
people believed the blacks in the community started firing back, WWI pilots
fired and dropped bombs on the neighborhood. Why don’t we talk about that in
our history book? Why do we look at the riots of the Black Lives Matter group as a negative when they are screaming their voices of frustration.
People also claim the Black Lives Matter is anti-police,
why?
Police are people, there are many men and women who are of
African and Latino descent who are also police. The Black Lives Matter group is
not anti-police; I believe they are anti-militarization of the police, as am I.
As well as being against police brutality, the best example is the beating of
Rodney King. As a person who had a very rough childhood, the police to me never
seemed like the heroes. I have seen police point guns at my family’s home while
I am outside playing, I have seen them come into my house and kick my bed and
ask to flip it while I was sleeping on it, I have seen police call themselves
crackers, those who whipped the slaves, as a form of intimidation to my friends
of African descent. I never saw the police as heroes, I always saw them as a
bully to people of my economic standpoint.
Don’t get me wrong, not every police officer is like that. I had friend who became police officers as well as befriended police
officers as well. But should they be given military assault rifles and tanks as
they perform their lines of duty, I don’t believe so. Growing up in a bad
neighborhood, I always seen a gun around me whether it was my parent’s own
legally obtained or a cop’s gun pointed at me. I have no fear of guns; I don’t
believe every child in America should have this perception of a deadly weapon,
there should be some cautious feeling towards the weapon of such power.
Now, many police stations are coming into military assault
rifles and even tanks. I remember going to a seminar about militarization of
police, and they mentioned something along those lines. How these men and women
in the police do not know how wield such weapons of power. Regardless of the
training of those weapons, as American do you really want to see police use such
excessive weaponry here? Tanks rolling down the street, cops pointing AK rifles
at people, I didn’t know we were war stricken country. I see weapons and tanks
like that in societies where war is present, like Syria. Do you as a person
want to give children the idea that war will erupt in this country?
The boy in my class went on to discuss how those of Muslim
religions should stay in their own countries and we should leave the Middle
East. I agree to the last part of his saying, we should have pulled out of the
Middle East, but we are too late now. We are in too deep now to leave, if we do
we let the terror group get what they want over in the Middle East. I do not
agree on restricting immigrants from coming to America based off their
religion. Being a country founded of the freedom of religion, not just the
Christian religion, I believe everyone should have an attempt of the pursuit of
happiness here in America. Maybe exercise caution to those who do come from war
stricken countries, but not have a ban on Muslims and bug the Mosques that are
presently here. Majority of those who are Muslim and live here in America are
westernized, not everyone has the extremist views as those in ISIS. Hell ISIS
isn’t even following the Islamic followings; they are killing other Muslims,
there are constant violence breaking out in places like Bangladesh and Baghdad.
They even attacked during one of the Islamic holidays.
But not everyone looks at things the way I do. I am one
person and not everyone thinks like me, I respect that. I don’t push my own
thoughts onto a person. I explain myself for my reason of thinking, mainly
because everyone deserves a reason why. He didn’t give me a reason for his way
of thinking, just that “It’s true.” Then again I shouldn’t hate on the kid for
not knowing, or just repeated thing he heard on certain biased media, maybe if
we taught more of the struggles, not just of white America, but everyone in America,
we would be more open and understanding of others. Just showing empathy can go a long way.
Just a thought.
