Hall - Assignment 9

Racial inequality is a subject I could talk about without notes for hours on end. I know, you're thinking "Is literally everything about race with this chick?" And y'know...yeah, it kinda is. It's not something I can stop thinking about, because racial inequality permeates everything I do. From birth, my net worth is unequal to any of my white peers. Before I was even born, my mother had to think of the way a college or job application would be viewed with my name plastered across it. She intentionally picked a unisex, non-racially identifying name for me, so that anyone viewing a resume or application wouldn't be able to identify anything about me. The percentage a black woman gets paid is less than a black man, a white woman, and especially a white man. I buy specific leashes for my dog so that if I go walking at night, I would be seen, and not another Trayvon Martin case. We don't stop in certain areas in certain states, even our own state, out of fear that we'd be on the next missing persons list. The KKK, formed exclusively to hate me because of my gene expression, is still alive and well. I could spend hours speaking about "The Talk" that all black children receive, that I know that I will have to give to my children, and am terrified that my cousins, my brother, my mother, my grandparents will be the next police brutality victim. What am I supposed to do when I live under a system that wasn't created for me in the first place? How am I supposed to love myself knowing that there are people out there who will hate me on first glance purely for the skin color that my ancestors gave me? How am I supposed to love myself knowing that there are people in my own state who would love to see me strung from a tree by my neck? And I know that there are billions in the world who feel just the way I do, and have for hundreds of years and nothing has been done.