Now is the Time

• Police called because young African-American is at the pool with friends.  
• Police called because 8-year-old African-American child is selling water without a licence.
• Police called because African-American gentlemen is at a public pool in his apartment complex wearing socks.
• Police called because African-American man enters home –that he is visiting.
• Police called because African-American woman used wrong coupon at a CVS.

 

I know there have been more, but everyday it seems these type of stories grace our headlines.  Why??? I can see this being an item of reporting if this was the 1960’s. Hello– we’ve not transported back in time, but it seems that the racist mindset has not come forward to 2018.  In my mind, every time I read these stories – I hear these words echoing in my mind –

 

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, I the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

 

If you know any famous speeches at all –this one should be at the top of your list.  It is of course, I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.    It’s now been 155 years later since the Emancipation Proclamation was signed,yet we still read headlines like those above.  It’s been 55 years since the Civil Rights Act was also signed ending segregation. Yet – people still discriminate – all races and anything/anyone that is different.  This is heartbreaking. We, as a collective group of humans, ought to be ashamed by the way those how someone is treated unfairly. In the latest event, the young man at the pool was assaulted by the white woman and no one came to his rescue.  NO ONE! Now tell me how this is right?

 

Yet while I stand atop my soapbox, I remind myself I am I equally guilty.  I know it is only human to be wary of people we don’t know, but a few weeks ago, in our local Wal-Mart, a young African-American teen approached me for money in the middle of the housewares department.   Honestly – it did scare me at first, but not because of his race, but because it totally took me by surprise, and he was an almost grown boy twice my size. People who are bigger than me often intimidate me.   Having a random person – no matter the color – come up to me out of nowhere knocked me off-balance so to speak. I came aware later being more disappointed in myself for my reaction though. I work with children of all ethnicities and backgrounds and never, ever feel uncomfortable around them.  Why should this have been any different? I certainly did not have the thought “Oh – I need to call the police!” That would have been ridiculous on my part in my opinion. When he asked for money, I just said “no” and he walked away.

 

So I’ve presented the problem.   If anything in the above headlines was illegal – it was the violation of rights.  So I ask you this – what is the solution? There has to be one — again. A solution that will work –this time.  Now is the time; it has to stop. Now is the time for all discrimination – to stop.