I like to speak on issues that are heavily debated, because I like to listen to both sides. I for one speak little of what I do not know. I do not know much about the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, besides the little I’ve heard. But I like to do my own research, so currently all I really have to say about that is, that the officer could’ve prevented his death, if he was willing to. But he was not and eventually the officer will have to deal with his decisions. From what I’ve read I know that the officer was not an honest man, because his current wife he started dating while he was married and she was also married, but not to each other. Michael, nor Trayvon were NOT the first, nor the last African-Americans to be killed by racists men (one a cop and two a want to be cop). I titled this Education (and the Injustice) because I want to reiterate that you have to be educated. Truly you do. What sparked this was the novel, The Invisible Man by Ralph Emerson. It’s a book for my English class. For those of you that read the book, I’m at the part right after Ras the Exhorter, an African activist, talked to the narrator and Brother Clifton. I was angered by the narrators’ blindness. He did not see how ignorant he was for not believing Ras. Ras talked about how they needed to use their intelligence to fight the enemy, the government really. And this got me thinking, about how society isn’t right. Society has decided who lives, who dies and who has all of their “naturally given rights” and who doesn’t. The killing of a teenage boy for stealing is not right. No, I don’t think stealing is right, but tons of people do it, and they don’t get killed. Getting killed over stealing is not okay. Many people who do way worse crimes don’t get killed. There is more than one way for a police officer to “do his job” (which I believe that police are to enforce laws, but power has driven the system mad). It’s not okay for anyone, but I don’t believe that a Caucasian would’ve gotten killed for the same crime. See, the races in America are separate and unequal. It’s evident. They still segregate schools, they just call it “school districts” and you have to go to your school in your district. You can see it in the little things, how schools are kept up, and who gets the greatest text books. Don’t even get me started about how DPS (Detroit Public Schools) is the largest district in Michigan, but they were trying to have 40 kids in one class, with one teacher. There’s fraud in the system, don’t get me wrong, but it’s also not a properly funded system. They (society) still view African-American males as scary, especially teenagers. Being sixteen, almost seventeen and going to a primarily African-American public school (which we are number #128 in the country, so that proves that one not all African-Americans are ignorant) I know a lot of boys. Mind you, we have only had three graduating classes, and that we are not properly funded. But my principal does a great job of making sure we have everything we want and need (key word: fundraisers). But, back to the topic. None of the boys I know are as vicious as society paints them. It is absolutely ridiculous to think that one of my friends would harm me in anyway. In addition to all of this, there is unequal treatment in schools. I want to be a teacher, and eventually run a school. I want to do it because I feel like the future needs to be educated. You have to be able to make your own decisions. I want to educate those who might not be able to get the best education possible, those who society has marked as unequal and not worth educating. Everyone is worth educating. We are all worth it. Get educated. Make your own decisions. Keep up with the news. The only way to change the system is to be the system.
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