Together we can fight to end racism

The main headline in sports pages across the country hasn’t been about a player throwing a touchdown or making a basket, but a much bigger issue.

Athletes as well as people all over the world have voiced their opinions to express their outrage on social injustice and police brutality. This comes in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd.

Prominent figures such as Spurs Head Coach Gregg Popovich, NBA Legend Michael Jordan and Green Bay Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers have made donations to racial equality funds and expressed their displeasure with social injustices. Global and national brands have cut ties with sports companies like Cross-Fit, and celebrities have come under fire because of insensitive remarks or their blatant disrespect of Floyd.

I know I’m supposed to cover sports, but as a young black man in America, I feel that it is my responsibility to give readers my point of view. Also, as the first black person to ever work for The Rockdale Reporter, I want the town’s residents to visualize what America is like through my eyes.

I’ve experienced episodes of racism at a young age.

At eight years old, a kid in my recreational football league told me he didn’t want to play on my team because I was brown. In college, I attended a party with my friends in town and a security guard at the apartment complex where the party was being held singled us out, even though we had done nothing wrong. He threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave the party. When I asked why he was kicking us out and no one else, the guard couldn’t even look me in my eye and offer a response.

It hurts my heart to witness live, the things that I grew up watching on the History Channel. The only difference from those black and white photos of lynch mobs is that I’m watching color videos of police shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at black protesters.

For many years, I have watched my people slain by those who are supposed to protect them. As a U.S. citizen, it is disheartening that I don’t feel a sense of safety when I am in the presence of a police officer.

Outside of the four walls of my office, some will never see Raynard, the respectful, talented and educated college graduate. They’ll see a muscular black male, wearing a gold chain around his neck with tattoos on his arms and label me a thug or a hoodlum.

It angers me that no matter what I do, I will never be considered an equal to my Caucasian counterparts.

I feel despair from seeing generations of my people’s heartbreak.

African Americans have been treated as property and second class citizens in America, even before it was founded.

Ever since African Americans arrived in America as slaves, we have had to be subservient to other races.

We have heard that we are not handsome enough, smart enough or good enough. This has caused self-loathing and self-doubt within the black community. This self-hate is so insidious that some black men do not date dark-skinned black women because they have bought into the myth that beauty comes in a lighter complexion.

It amazes me how it took a victim with a knee pressed into his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds on camera and relentless demonstrations, protests and rioting for people to notice that black people have been dying at the hands of police for decades.

Floyd’s six-year-old daughter, Gianna, will have to watch her father being killed at the knee of a police officer for the rest of her life because it is online. Does society expect her to trust and respect these officers who took her father from her life?

While I don’t condone riots and looting, I would like to say that leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Colin Kaepernick tried to stage peaceful protests, yet one man was assassinated, while the other was blacklisted.

I do not mean to condemn an entire race or police force because I know one bad person doesn’t represent everybody. Still to those who repeat the mantra “All lives matter,” it’s problematic to say “all lives,” when “black lives” are treated inferior.

A good amount of joy did fill my heart as I watched Asians, blacks, Hispanics and whites walking together in the streets. It showed me that although we may be down, we are not defeated.

It made me happy to watch different people come together from all walks of life to protest a common enemy known as racism. There’s still a sense of love in certain people beyond the chaos the television news stations choose to provide.

To everyone who says that they agreed that what happened to George Floyd was wrong, I challenge you to keep that same energy when all of this passes. Don’t say you support social equality and the black lives matter movement just because it’s trending.

I challenge everyone to go sign petitions and make donations.

Let’s fight racism together.