Many of these incidents have been followed by massive protests–sometimes even rioting that results in further violence–calling for justice for the responsible parties and societal change to prevent such a tragedy from happening again. Each horror has been followed by calls for institutional change, inspiring hope in the communities that perhaps,we are on the cusp of reform. The message is that black lives are NOT expendable, after all. Looks like it hasn\u2019t happened yet. But I hope it happens soon. We need another massive revolution to reiterate the\u00a0 the 15th amendment and Civil Rights Acts.<\/p>\n

In hope that the deaths have not been in vain, I envision the events to be the slowly growing base that will culminate in a wave of change to turn into a social reality the legal equality promised to every individual, regardless of race, so many years ago.<\/p>\n

In the discussion, we need to keep in mind how mass incarceration is disproportionately affecting the black population and is being called \u201cThe New Jim Crow.\u201d\u00a0 We also need to consider the recent outrage over Donald Sterling\u2019s bigoted comments. Each of these events is a signal that the supposedly color-blind state of our society may be more of a myth than we would like to believe. When everything is being analyzed for racist and prejudiced undertones, why do we continue to dole out little slaps on the wrist for heinous crimes? Why do we continue to hesitate to openly mark something as racist, no matter what we find in that undertone analysis, for fear of being called racist ourselves? Why do we continue to silence the people trying to talk openly about race as if they are the ones perpetuating racism?<\/p>\n

Researching the case of Michael Brown, I stumbled upon\u00a0 similarities to the other cases. I saw one similar case only to find another and then another and then another, before I finally had to stop pulling on the\u00a0 lengthy string of horrors. Of the eight deaths outlined above, only one resulted in the conviction of the perpetrators for murder. One.<\/p>\n

America: you can\u2019t have your cake and eat it, too. Either make change–real change, not rioting and violence– and bring justice, or openly condone the idea that white life is worth more. We need to destroy the idea that we are a color-blind society and admit that there are major flaws in the system that set us up to be less a \u201cpost-racial\u201d society and more an \u201cinnocent until proven racist\u201d society. But we also need to keep in mind that those flaws can be fixed, and that it is our personal responsibility to make sure they are. We need to stop ignoring prejudice until tragedy strikes and then pretending we never hid it in the first place. Something has to give for the horrors to stop, and I hope we can make it happen soon. I really do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

America continues to make international headlines as the world watches racial tensions repeatedly reaching the breaking point after the killing of an unarmed African-American:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":644,"featured_media":29720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[255,843,1360,834],"tags":[2322,912],"yoast_head":"\n