Dear America,
I’m sorry that my protests are inconvenient. That you were late for work and missed your latte. I’m sorry that people commit a high percentage of crimes against the people that look like them, or live near them. I’m sorry that criminals are lazy and find travel inconvenient. I get it. No really, I get it. After Cain slew Abel, if you had started suspecting every sibling whenever there was another murder, it would have made sense to suspect every male sibling, because based on your statistics, every murder had been committed by a male sibling. I know it’s not your fault that people are protesting the perceived injustices perpetrated by the systems and people that are supposed to serve and protect the people. How dare they prevent you from going about your daily lives without having to think about the plight of someone that doesn’t look like you, or live near you, or pray like you do.
Imagine if the police stopped you and searched you whenever you drove past a school because someone that looked like you slaughtered children with an assault rifle. Or if you had to be stopped and frisked every time you went to a movie theater because a madman that looked like you massacred innocent people. Would it be right for me to take my savings out of your bank because you look like someone that ran a Ponzi scheme.
I feel sorry for you when you hear people are protesting and you have to take five minutes out of your commute to ask Google or Siri what’s going on. I am sorry that the inconvenience forces you to post snarky comments that the protestors probably don’t have jobs. Or that your regularly scheduled programming is preempted so that the local news can report about the protests.
I am sorry that you are infuriated whenever a dog kills someone people say Pit Bulls and Rottweilers are too dangerous but you don’t bat and eye when politicians get on television and say that the only reason black and brown boys are profiled by the police is because they commit crimes against their own. I’m sorry that you read this and think I am comparing pets to people.
America I am truly sorry that when you turn on the news and hear about crimes, terrorism, and injustice you only see it as the inconvenience caused by other people’s problems. Those people are killing themselves, or those people need to get a job.
Dear America I am sorry that you can’t see that there are evil people in the world and good people in the world. I am sorry that all you can see is the statistics of race and not the fact that laws exist because it is in human nature to sin. People commit crimes for many different reasons, but race is not one of them. The difference between the Bernie Madoffs of the world and the common street criminal is that there is not difference. How many people are homeless or were driven to murder suicide because someone in a suit took their life savings. The criminal with a pen affects millions while the criminal with the gun only affects a few. The difference is how the legal system treats them both when they are caught. You expect the street thug to go to jail forever but you are not angry when the “white collar” criminal gets a fine and a small sentence.
I am sorry that when someone holds up their hands and says “don’t shoot” or wears a shirt that says “I can’t breathe” you instinctively see it as attack against the fine men and women in law enforcement and not the cry against injustice that it truly is. If you hit me with your car by mistake or on purpose I am still injured regardless of intent. Don’t get mad at me if I demand to know why something happened so it doesn’t happen again.
Dear America I am sorry that is nearly 2015 and we have to discuss race because bias and prejudice exist. Having a bias or being prejudiced does not make a person bad or evil. Ignoring the fact that our actions are driven by the bias and prejudices of our experiences and the experiences of our community, that’s the real crime.
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