Many people have been taken aback by the sheer intensity of the protests raging across our great nation.
Yet, in my opinion, they should be viewed as a necessary step in the right direction.
While I certainly do not condone senseless violence, the time of sitting in quiet ignorance has come to a close. Kneeling in peaceful resolve has been repeatedly ignored by those in power – in short, a peaceful resolution is not possible.
And really, it never has been.
Looking Back at History
If you dive into the dark and winding history of our nation, it becomes apparent that great change has only ever come in response to drastic action.
It has always required people making the conscious decision to rise up together while shouting at the top of their lungs to make ignorance impossible.
With that in mind, it should be obvious that the horrible inequities within our nation are not only for legislators to solve.
It is up to all of us.
We the people must force the change that is so desperately needed in the communities across our county. It is time to take individual and collective responsibility to achieve the dream of our founders and ensure equality for all.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
My memorization piece in grade school was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Some of you may think that as a Canadian this was quite the unusual choice. However, something within that address truly resonated with me.
Maybe it was because as a young girl my ethnic appearance and dark hair often resulted in its own form of discrimination.
In short, people thought me to be of Indian heritage – and with Canada having a long and disgraceful history of oppression against our First Nations Peoples, this was not an appearance that was openly embraced.
Now, just to clear – I liked how I looked.
In fact, I still do.
But even as a young girl, the thought that someone could be judged and ostracized based upon their appearance and their background made me sick to my stomach. It was something that I simply could not fathom.
Consequently, in my mind, the soaring promise of Lincoln – the promise that America was indeed a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal – was a beacon worthy of commitment.
It is hard to believe that Lincoln’s address happened more than 150 years ago – scarier still is the fact that my memorization of it was about 50 years ago.
‘The Great Society’
It Is also more than 50 years ago that President Johnson shared his vision of what he considered ‘The Great Society’ – his legislative agenda for creating an Americas Society free of racial inequality.
And to be sure, in that time some progress has been made.
A recent article in Brookings highlights the fact that:
- In 1940, 60 percent of employed black women worked as domestic servants, while today that number is down to 2.2 percent.
- In 1958, 44 percent of whites said they would move if a black family became their next door neighbor. And today, that number is down to 1 percent.
- In 1964, the year the great Civil Rights Act was passed, only 18 percent of whites claimed to have a friend who was black. Today 86 percent say they do, while 87 percent of black people state that they have white friends.
However, since then progress has greatly stalled.
In the decades following the introduction of these policies, the poverty rate has barely budged an inch. Close to 30 percent of African American families live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate amongst blacks is twice as high as whites.
Education
While more African American children are attending college than ever before, research has shown that they are not leaving college with same skills as their white classmates.
And no, this is not through a lack of effort.
It is much worse than that.
Black students simply get less attention than those of Caucasian heritage.
Structural discrimination is still entrenched amongst much of the white collar population, leading to educational inequalities that cannot be overcome by just ‘learning on the job’ – and these things need to change.
Yes, we have seen some great progress, but we are not there yet.
In fact, we are not even close.
Over the last week millions of Americans have taken to the streets in protest. They have chosen to lend their voice with the knowledge that more progress is needed, and it is needed quickly.
But it cannot stop there.
When these protests end, I implore you to keep pushing – to keep being heard.
It is the only way that we the people will make the true change our nation so desperately needs.
