In Amerikkka, my people are labeled felons and criminals because of the color of our skin. We’re labeled a disturbance of the peace because of how big our Afros are. Amerikkka (not America) continued to justify that name on Jan 6, 2021, the day the Capitol was stormed by pro-Trump supporters. This day will forever leave a scar on Amerikkkan history.
On Jan 6, 2021, Trump supporters destroyed the Capitol, they waved their flags and nooses, they shot at the police. They used white supremacy to shelter them. They got a stern talking to and a few people have been arrested. If my people had done the same damage, our blood would have been the new paint splattered on the Capitol’s walls. We would have been beaten senseless as rioters. Compare this to how the police reacted violently to the peaceful Black Lives Matters protests that happened all last spring and summer. Why is the treatment different for white protesters?
I am tired of living in a world where it’s ok to protest my protest. My protest is for my human rights, the right to be treated equally. I’m tired of hearing “Make America Great Again” when America was never great for my people. The saying “Make America Great Again” really means “ Make Amerikkka White Again”. It means to suppress my people once again because of the color of my skin. I am labeled a thief when I walk into a store because of the color of my skin, when the real thief in the store steals my rights.
I am a powerful Moorish American young woman with an Afro as big as the Earth, with a voice as loud as a lion, I am life. But yet slave masters gave my people the name “Black” which signals dirt and death, they called us “colored’ which means to be tainted, dyed, painted. I am not one word. I am not a crayon so stop calling me black or colored. We take these labels and normalize them and make them okay. But they’re not okay. Saying “people of color” is just the nice and proper way of saying “colored” people.
When you look up the definition of colored, Google replies with “relating to people who are wholly or partly of non-white descent.” When you connect it to history, what Google is saying is that colored means relating to people who are fully or partly of non-European descent. Europeans are the ones who called themselves white, they thought that white was pure. That’s ironic because the impact Europeans had on history is anything but pure, it is cruel, racist, and degrading.
I don’t care if society thinks “people of color” is the proper term to describe my people because it’s not. Europeans stripped us of our crowns years ago, but we will only be referred to as kings and queens with a long and powerful history. We are a force to be reckoned with in Amerikkka and we have to start using our power to make change.
Let’s start at BCS. BCS is a school full of future surgeons, lawyers, nurses, therapists, athletes and more. We are the future, we are what the world will soon be. We can’t sit here any longer and allow this inequality and misrepresentation to go on. We can’t allow racism (including racist terms like “people of color”) to threaten our intelligence and our futures. We have to educate ourselves better on these topics and speak up boldly about how we feel. BCS is full of Latinx students, African American students, Asian students, Muslim students, Christian students, and many more students of all different races and beliefs.
If we are going to describe a melanated person, instead of grouping them all together as “people of color,” consider describing them by their ethnicity or asking them what they want to be called. We all may be melanated people and may have some similar experiences, but we all don’t have the same history.
When I fill out some official forms like a job application, I have choices to make. When it asks for my race, I’m supposed to say Black or African American. African American may be acceptable but I refuse to be called black. I might change it next time. I’m going to put white or other. White means pure, right? And that describes me. No matter what I put down, it shouldn’t matter what race I am, it shouldn’t impact whether I get the job or not. But quite frankly it does. The system and country I live and breathe in everyday needs to change. We need change. We need leaders. We need to educate ourselves and speak up for equal rights. BCS is full of leaders, so let’s seize that change.
