It's the year ....

It’s the year 1619 and the first Africans have been seized by British colonies, bought and traded to work under their noses. Their labour is going unrewarded, and the Europeans forced millions of these black men and women to be their slaves, working endlessly on tobacco and rice plantations. Money is all that drives this need for slaves. For centuries this goes on, as economies failed and the rich grow richer from the sales and trading of said slaves.

It’s the year 1788 and The First Fleet, a ship filled with British convicts has arrived on the shores of Australia, a place deemed unfit to live on and served as punishment for these white criminals. Yet they soon find out this land is liveable, as they find hundreds of thousands of Aboriginals have been living here for thousands of years. Not long after it will be massacre after massacre of Aboriginal lives as the Europeans try to claim this land as their own.

It’s the year 1808 and the U.S Congress ban the slave trade, yet the enslaved population almost triples in the South, though the North had abolished slavery more than 30 years prior. In the next 55 years, the civil war will start, and people will literally be fighting to keep slavery alive. 

It’s the year 1901 and the Australia Government has issued what is known as ‘The White Australia Policy.’ Forcing any non-European migrants to sit a dictation test, firstly in English. If they pass, they are forced to sit it again in different languages until they fail. As a result, many non-whites stop coming to Australia. 

It’s the year 1910 and young Indigenous Australians are being forcibly removed from their homes and families, taught to forget their black heritage and adopt white culture. Whites are seen are superior, and “half-caste” (half aboriginal and half white) children are even more susceptible to removal, because they are considered as being easier to assimilate into white communities due to their lighter skin. 

It’s the year 1926 and African Americans aren’t allowed to work, can’t be seen in certain places, and had restrictions on where they could live. Communities are divided into white versus black. Segregation is very much in place. 

It’s 1962 and southerners are protesting the enrolment of black student at the University of Mississippi, trying to keep the school segregated. It resulted in an all-out riot that killed two people, and injured another 300 in a crowd of over 3000. 

Fast forward to today, corrupt cops are targeting black people as racism rules, still way too prevalent. You think we’d have progressed by now. 400 years later, and still, to this day, black people are fighting for their rights. Black people are fighting not to get killed simply because of the colour of their skin. In a world where little kids are getting shot dead for holding a toy gun. In a world where women are getting shot dead for opening their front door. In a world where teenage boys are getting shot dead because police mistake their hairbrush for a weapon.

Today, where blacks and whites are fighting in union at protests, because finally people recognise that change needs to occur. People are screaming on the streets, flagging their signs, trying to encourage change. Instead, they’re tear gassed, fired at, charged, attacked, assaulted. By who? Those that swore to protect them. The police, the ones in uniform. 

If you cannot see that racism exists, you are racist. If you do not understand the “big deal” then you are privileged, and are lucky you don’t have to face the constant oppression that black people all around the world face daily. Every day they walk out of their house; they don’t know if they’ll come back alive. Without even realising it their “goodbye, I’ll see you tomorrow” has turned into “stay safe man, I love you,” because they don’t know if they will see them tomorrow. 5x as many unarmed black people are killed each year than that of a white man. You cannot say that racism is better now. You do not get to say that it no longer exists.

We are not equal. 

Racial inequality exists all around and you’d be ignorant to disagree. In the workplace, on average black men earn 26.5% less than a white man, and black women earn 10.9% less than a white woman. Wealth wise, black families only hold just over 2.5% of the national wealth in America. In schools, discipline is hard for all kids, but especially black children as they are 3x more likely to be suspended or expelled for the exact same infraction. Though black people make up only 13% of the US population, they take up 40% of the prison population. Not because they are worse people, but because they are more likely to be committed for a crime, the same crime at that, than a white person. 

Willie Simmons is a prime example of unfair justice, who was sentenced to life without parole in 1982. “What did he do?” You might ask, well he stole $9. Yes, you heard correctly. A black man has spent 38 years in prison for stealing a mere $9. Jerry Hartfield is another example, a man who was imprisoned for 35 years without conviction, just because 3 years into his sentence when he was supposed to be up for trial, everyone pushed him to the back burner and he was forgotten in the huge justice system. 

This is why change needs to happen and it needs to happen now. Stop looking at black men and women differently because of the colour of their skin. Stop fearing them walking past you in the streets, while you hold your bag closer to you. They have the same mind and bodies as the rest of us. They are not more violent, they are not ruder, they are not less mentally capable, they are not less experienced or less than any of us in any way.

No one is born racist, children grow up surrounded by a racist, primarily white culture and they follow suit. We need to teach them that they are our equal, not our enemy. They are our friend, not our foe. Change starts with us.

If you didn’t yet understand, and you do now, good. Help fight for change. Work with us for a better and brighter future for all races. 

If you’re reading this and still do not believe racism is an issue in current society, you are the problem.