Mykel Greene – The LCR

History Made in Georgia

Last year, the United States descended into pure chaos. Systemic racism was thriving and it resulted in several untimely deaths. All the while, we were ill-equipped to handle the pandemic that seized the world due to inadequate leadership. So many civil uprisings, rallies, and rioting for change that was long overdue. Now, after the election in November 2021 is looking to be the start of that change.

When Biden and Harris won the election, I sighed with relief. While they might not be my number one pick for president and vice president, I think that they can get the ball rolling for the United States to improve for all of its people.

For some states it was time to elect new Senators, Georgia being one. What is so significant about Georgia is that it is a traditionally red state. It has been for a long time. And yet, for this election, Georgia flipped to blue, directly resulting in the White House, the Senate, and the House being blue.

The two new Senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are not originally politicians. Ossoff was an investigative journalist and documentary film producer and Warnock a senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church. I believe that the more non-political people we elect into positions of power, the more likely legislature will be passed for all people due to the diversification of personal, academic, and professional experiences of the people in power.

Warnock is the first Black Senator of Georgia, and this can only mean great things moving forward for communities of color. He might be the catalyst for even more people of color obtaining positions in state and federal governments. While I’m not from Georgia nor do I live in Georgia, I am excited to see what Warnock will help make happen to address the racism that has been running rampant.

However, I think the short term implications are worth considering. With the diversification of the government, it has exacerbated the tyranny of President Trump and the radical actions of ‘the proud boys’.

On January 6th, an armed mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in retaliation to the federal government turning blue. This was an act of domestic terrorism and yet President Trump did nothing to get the mob to leave. He did nothing to ensure the sanctity of the White House. All he did was condone their actions and allow them the privilege of destroying government property. The only thing on my mind as I watched this on the news is how if this mob was predominantly people of color, they would be shot before they even made it to the lawn.

I saw on the news a few days later that the mob planned to attack not only the U.S. Capitol again, but also all fifty capitols in the United States. CNN also said that if President Trump was impeached before the inauguration on January 20th, they will attack. Of course, there were death threats towards Biden, Harris, and House representative Pelosi.

I don’t know if these threats are still a concern, especially now that the House has impeached President Trump for the second time. Yes, beautiful progress is being made, but I worry about whether there will be a safe transition of power, and about whether President Trump and his ‘proud boys’ will be held accountable for their transgressions.

Navigating the Workforce in COVID-19

I am privileged to say that this pandemic did not change my life much at all. The quarantine didn’t either. I was and still am employed. When the curfew was instituted in the Spring, I didn’t have to abide by it because I was deemed an “essential worker.” I lost maybe five hours a week while conversely, others lost several hours or was put on furlough.

Because of my job, I was still able to go outside and go about my life. On my days off I immediately got cabin fever, and so I can’t possibly begin to understand how people who had completely locked themselves indoors might feel.

Unlike most of my peers, I was able to have my graduation. I was able to walk across the stage at Temple‘s Performing Arts Center, one I’ve performed on during my undergraduate study. I was able to walk across the stage in front of my peers, my family, and shake my dean’s hand. This is an opportunity that was snatched away from my peers who are more than deserving of this glorious time. It was snatched away from graduating students at every academic level.

The pandemic had finally gotten to me though a few months ago. Listening to the body count on the news. Delivering to people’s homes and they aren’t wearing masks. Being afraid to handle cash transactions. Thinking about my weakened immune system. Thinking about my family and the strain that it’s put on us.

I was looking for a second job right before the quarantine was placed in effect. It was difficult then because I was being picky about what I wanted to do. However, it is difficult now because employers are being extremely picky about who they hire. Retail stores and grocery stores alike, gave me the “you don’t have the experience we’re looking for” spiel. Meanwhile, these are entry-level positions that claim applicants don’t need any prior experience.

I was able to get an interview a month ago and it was very disorienting to not begin with the all-telling handshake. The mask made me realize how much I relied on my face to convey my charisma and I think I overcompensated with confident words that probably sounded more cocky instead.

I am blessed to not need another job right now. The job market post-quarantine is treacherous. So many people are without jobs altogether or without jobs that completely cover their costs of living. All positions of all kinds are now highly competitive.

I believe that once social distancing is no longer in effect, more job opportunities will appear and thus give way for more people to join or rejoin the workforce.

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How Many More?

I constantly find myself mourning people I’ve never met. The eulogies are the same, but with different names. This time, his name is Ahmaud Arbery, aged 25 and was about to be 26 on May 8th.

He too fell victim to his skin, the same color as the chocolate that his murderers probably like to eat. Only in the form of candy is Blackness palatable to racism.

Ahmaud was just out for his daily run. Many people do this; even through this quarantine people are still outside exercising. But isn’t the perception of Black boys and Black men running that they’re ‘usually running from something’?

On February 23rd in Brunswick, Georgia, Gregory and Travis McMichael were playing vigilante the way George Zimmerman did. Boy and man alike, neither Trayvon nor Ahmaud ‘could have been up to any good’ just running or going to the corner store.

The McMichaels saw a Black man running in their neighborhood, which couldn’t have been for a reason as innocent and simple as him exercising.

There had been a series of burglaries in the McMichaels’ neighborhood. I can understand being suspicious of people coming and going that don’t live there. However, would they have pursued him in a truck with trigger happy fingers and guns had he been White instead?

The way a person runs for leisure and exercise looks entirely different from someone running from a crime, or their death. I suppose it all looked the same to the McMichaels. So yes, Ahmaud was a Black man running from something alright.

They were the ones armed and dangerous. The McMichaels grabbed a shotgun and a handgun before jumping in their truck to follow Ahmaud. Ahmaud was armed only with the prayer that every Black parent has: that he returns home the same way he left out. Alive.

What baffles me is how long it took for the McMichaels to be arrested. Two and a half months after the incident, these murderers were just arrested on Thursday, May 7th, and charged with murder and aggravated assault. This only happened because a video of the murder was finally brought to light.

What baffles me is how William Bryan, the man who took a video of the murder, took this long to turn it over to authorities. He let the McMichaels walk around as free men for two and half months more. He let Ahmaud’s murder almost be waved off as “self-defense.”

I’m not saying that he and his family deserve the death threats that they’re receiving. I don’t know how I feel about him being charged with murder either. Withholding evidence in an ongoing investigation? That is something I’d charge him with because there is absolutely no reason why he felt it to be better to just hold onto this footage of Ahmaud’s last moments for months.

I understand that he was afraid in the moment the murder occurred. I would be too. Just taking the video was probably the best he could do because he put his safety and his family’s safety first. But what about Ahmaud’s safety? What about the family that Ahmaud won’t be able to create because he is dead? What about the goals and dreams and aspirations that this man had that cannot be fulfilled?

We have a right to be outraged. Racial profiling is continuing to cut down Black bodies. How many more need to die before it is safe for us to be Black and American? Will we ever be safe in our Blackness? Will we ever be American?

What a Fall From Grace

While I’ve been in college only for four and a half years, it feels as if I’ve been there twice as long because so much has changed from the time I enrolled and to now.

I entered college under Barack Obama and will be graduating under Donald Trump. I’ve watched Trump gradually tear down what little Obama was able to build, branding it as ineffective, but was unable to come up with anything better.

In my junior year, I interned with The Japan Times when I studied abroad in Japan. Every day without fail, Trump would be on the front page with new or recurring shenanigans. Through a different cultural lens, I was able to look at my president, at my country and see how we are continuing to plummet from grace.

The mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL happened while I was abroad. When I returned home, there were many more mass shootings. There were many more shootings in general, which claimed the lives of innocent people for unjustifiable reasons.

If we put forth legislation to regulate the gun market, people will claim that it’s an infringement on their second amendment rights, and/or use under-the-table methods to obtain a gun. It turns out that the more you tell someone to do something, the more likely it is for them to do the opposite.

This holds true in terms of immigration as well. Everyone’s circumstances for emigrating from their home countries are different, though more often than not, it is a better option to take a chance on America versus staying home. Under this anti-immigration presidency, immigrants have been treated worse than I’ve ever seen in my life. Separating children from their adult relatives, housing these children and adults in separate detainment camps without the barest of essentials, and making these children stand trials without translators or juries are just a few of the inhumane efforts to deport these immigrants.

America was built on immigration and continues to thrive today because of immigration. Yet, xenophobia has a vice grip on some Americans. The fear of foreignness coupled with the misconception that immigrants are taking over our economy result sometimes in fatal events like the mass shooting in El Paso, TX.

I continue to watch as our “magnificent” country further deteriorate because that’s all I can do when I don’t know what to do or what can be done.

Similar Read: Fascism 101

Pointing Fingers

There is a monster within our midst. This monster was born and bred in the Land of the Free, fed from the bosom of bigotry, and taught how to survive by means of trigger happy fingers. Now that the monster is running amok, we are quick to point fingers at each other. Did you know that when you’re pointing the blame at someone or something else, there are three fingers pointed back at yourself?

This monster has been taking the form of mass shootings, which have unfortunately become endemic in the United States. From theaters to parks to schools to nightclubs to Walmarts to downtown night scenes, gun violence has become increasingly more pervasive and its reach keeps extending. It continues to take over any and all remaining safe spaces, if people even feel safe here anymore.

On the first Sunday of August, many lives were threatened and many lives were claimed.

Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old White man, traveled 600 miles from his hometown of Allen, TX to El Paso, to this Walmart. It is inarguable that he was a man on a mission to “get as many [Mexicans] as he [could]”. Given that El Paso is comprised of roughly 80% Mexican and Latinx, it is accurate to deem this as a hate crime. Crusius allegedly posted a “manifesto” on a dark website, 8chan, which includes strong anti-immigrant sentiments.

Authorities reported that Crusius unabashedly confessed to this crime, saying “I’m the shooter”. Crusius is being charged with capital murder, but it is still uncertain whether he will be charged for this mass shooting as a hate crime. According to The NY Times, authorities are still looking for a definitive link between the manifesto on 8chan and Crusius. If they are to find it, then they may prosecute him for the shooting being either an act of domestic terrorism or being a hate crime. Personally, I don’t understand how it can’t be both.

There are people who claim that this rhetoric sounds like President Trump’s election and re-election campaign, which both contain antagonistic views of immigrants, legal and illegal. This is finger-pointing. We are looking for someone to blame for this and Trump fits the mold, close enough.

In Dayton, OH, Connor Betts finally got to enact his desire of becoming a mass shooter. Betts had expressed his desire to be a mass shooter since he was in high school. According to his old classmates, all he talked about was guns, extreme violence, and his “hit list.” This list was divided into two sections: a kill list for guys and a rape list for girls. With someone as vocal as he was about his intents, it begs to question why there was no further action taken against him. Betts had been a ticking time bomb since he was a high school student so I want to know how we could have given him the chance to explode.

Something’s got to give.

On Monday, August 5th, President Trump addressed these tragic events. While his sincerity could be called into question, if we focused on what he said, there is still a bone to pick with it. He blames violent video games and the internet for corrupting the minds of youths like Crusius and Betts. He also blames these violent acts on mental illness. Trump wants to start putting Red Flag Laws into effect through a bipartisan effort so that we can prevent arming “mentally ill monsters” in the future. Mental illness, video games, and the internet can be factors in decisions and intents such as these, but they are not the blame for them.

Trump is pointing fingers at other reasons for these tragedies, but his remaining three fingers point at how he seems undecided about whether he’ll protect the people or the second amendment rights, how he feels there’s an influx of immigrants that are ruining our “great” country and making America lose its identity, and how his words and actions can be construed as misogynistic and racist. During his presidency, racist and sexist agendas have become more forthright. If our president can do and say these things, why can’t we the people do the same?

One thing that stuck with me from Trump’s address is how mass shootings have steadily increased since Columbine twenty years ago. This increasing frequency needs to be stopped so innocent lives won’t be taken. This needs to stop now, but what would the solution look like?

I like the idea of running background checks on individuals who are looking to purchase a firearm. It is certainly tedious work, similar to getting clearances for a new job, but this extra work can ensure that individuals like Crusius and Betts do not get their trigger happy fingers on them. This can be invasive, and it surely wouldn’t be infallible, but it would be a move in the right direction.

The second amendment grants us the right to bear arms, and by placing the gun market under stricter supervision, it can be seen as an infringement of this right. I don’t see how we can more strictly regulate the sale and resale of firearms in America whilst remaining completely faithful to our second amendment right. However, as the saying goes, you can’t make everyone happy.

I also like the idea of raising the age from 18 to 21; however, it is ridiculous to enforce because we are allowed to enlist in the army at the age of 18. We’ll be handling guns at 18, home and overseas, but will not be able to purchase them upon our return if we enforce a policy like this.

Change is a ripple effect and it doesn’t happen immediately. Decisions have to be made in order for change of some sort to occur. We won’t know if it’s a bad decision or a good one if we don’t put forth the effort. President Trump is pushing for us to put our political differences aside because we need to stand together to make change. We need to relinquish ourselves of this monster we’ve created in the hopes of being and feeling safe within our own country.

Similar Read: Gun Control: Could It Be That Easy?

Is the Price of Priceless Lives Just 99 Cents?

Children are very observant. They can notice subtleties in the atmosphere. They can pick up on the emotions of others. But, they can also have a very blurry line between right and wrong when they are especially young, say, the age of four. ‘I like that Barbie. I want it. It’s mine.’ With a rationale this simple, who would’ve thought that it would have disastrous consequences?

In Phoenix, Arizona, Dravon Ames and Iesha Harper’s four-year-old daughter picked up a Barbie doll inside a dollar store, put it in her bag, and left with her aunt. No weapons. No threatening behavior. No extensive loss. Just a four-year-old who wanted a Barbie and took one unbeknownst to her parents and aunt.

The police were called, and the first responder was an overzealous and extremely aggressive White male officer, whose name is Christopher Meyer. Although there are more than a few bad apples in the police force as a whole, Harper believed that there were enough good apples to encourage her daughters to depend on the police in dangerous situations.

Then the two toddlers sat with their mother in the backseat as this officer is screaming and profaning left and right, a locked and loaded gun in his hands. This four-year-old, this one-year-old, sat there and observed the very reason why many Americans of color today cannot bring themselves to trust and depend on the police.

This young Black family was leaving the dollar store to drop the young children off at their babysitter’s apartment. Before the car was even in park, they had to fear for their lives because the officer was surely going to “f—ing put a cap in [their] f—ing head[s]!”

If you watch the videos on this, you’ll see that these young Black people were unarmed, non-threatening, but most of all, compliant. The Young Turks, a popular talk show and podcast, did a segment on this. They posited that the reason the officers handled this family the way they did is because they weren’t providing the invigorating response of ‘resisting arrest’, therefore they tried to provoke it as seen when the officer kicks Ames’ legs apart. Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, thinks it could also be that they were talking to the family this way because they thought the family, or rather Black people, talked like that.

The only thing worse than these traumatic events is the aftermath. I say this because, in situations like Black bodies versus White badges, it is almost certain that these instances will be swept under the proverbial rug, buried under hollow apologies, like what the Mayor of Phoenix Kate Gallego had to say on the matter.

“It was completely inappropriate and clearly unprofessional. There is no situation in which this behavior is ever close to acceptable,” said Gallego and quoted by Eric Levenson, et al in an article on CNN.

The people of Arizona, of the United States, don’t want to hear from an echo chamber that this is inexcusable, unacceptable, or whatever other “antiseptic” word, as Cedric L. Alexander, a writer from CNN, mentioned in his article. These half-hearted apologies tell the brutalized family and the rest of beautiful, colored America that nothing will be done.

Phoenix Police Chief Jeri Williams addressed this in a video, stating that she will personally spearhead this investigation of the department with the Professional Standards Bureau. For the officers in question, that just means desk duty. Desk duty is not a punishment. It isn’t even a slap on the wrist. It’s a ‘people are raging right now so let’s keep these officers safely employed until the people calm down enough for them to go back out on patrol.’

The family sustained not only physical injuries but also emotional trauma, especially those young children who observed it all but do not have yet the tools to comprehensively express their feelings. The one-year-old got her shoulder injured when the officer yanked her by her arm in an attempt to remove her from her mother.

To gain some sort of justice, the family is suing the city of Phoenix for $10 million dollars. I pray that justice is served. For me and maybe for you, justice looks like those two officers being fired, arrested, and imprisoned for aggravated assault, as well as counseling for the family.

The money is a bonus that can be used towards keeping the family on their feet as Ames recovers from his injuries that inhibit his ability to work. As seen in the videos, the officers are seen slinging him to the ground and the squad car, kicking his legs apart, and punching him unnecessarily in his back.

Something’s got to give. How many more incidents like this need to happen before change? Ames and his family were lucky to have survived because they, as well as the many bystanders, believed, that they would die right there on the spot for the sake of a 99 cent Barbie doll that the dollar store wasn’t even going to press charges for.

This family, and all the other families who’ve experienced this same brutality in Arizona and across the United States, demand more than an apology. I hope that at least in this case, this family receives more than a mere apology.

Similar Read: Why is Mental Health Ignored in Schools?

A POC Undefined

I am exoticized, and my olive skin, my big brown eyes, and black hair that falls in loose curls are the culprits. I am quick to be labeled as anything that will make everyone else comfortable: Latina, Indian, Asian, and etc. I am objectified with “Hey light skin” and “Hey Mami,” and the contours of my body are to blame. “I want to get to know you,” they will say. However, they only want to get to know this body that is the physical embodiment of the unknown. I am just a rare commodity.

People tend to not look beyond my appearance because it is too mysterious. It is truly baffling because you cannot tell ‘what’ I am by just looking at me. Get-to-know-you questions always begin with, “What are you mixed with?” My answer is never satisfactory, and therefore, people will argue with me about how I identify. At the end of the day, it is no one’s business but mine what my genetic makeup is unless I choose to make it their business.

I am a multiracial woman, but more often than not I am not accepted as such. I can distinctly remember in high school, this guy pestered me about what I am. After a while, I stopped dodging the question and gave him an answer. He kept telling me that I wasn’t that. He kept telling me that I was Indian and that I should stop lying and saying that I’m Black. It is funny to me that people already have an answer to their question, yet they still waste their breath on asking me anyway. It is as if verification is needed for them to feel the way they do about me, to think what they want about me.

I am too Black to be White, too White to be Black, and not enough Native American to claim my heritage. Growing up was difficult because there were racial cliques. My being multiracial made me the outsider to all of them. I ‘didn’t understand’ the struggles of thick, coarse hair management. I was ‘privileged’ for my lighter complexion, but was still overlooked to favor my White counterparts. I knew nothing about the reserves and the fight to keep those sacred grounds sacred, to defend against industrialization. I wanted to belong to something so much that I denounced everything that wasn’t Black and made that my new identity, but that only made matters worse. It gave way to incidents much like the one with the guy from high school.

All of my experiences bred a level of self-loathing for being different. I have never wanted anything more than to be able to not stand out wherever I go. I wanted to be able to just go about life without being questioned in most conversations about my race. Now, being a young adult, I’m learning to love the melanin in my skin that allows me to be pale like butterscotch in the winter and dark as cognac in the summer. I’m learning to appreciate each curve of my body and not try to diminish myself every time I step foot out of the house. That is doing myself a disservice.

I am a Person of Color, and never will I ever again be ashamed of being more than just one color.

Similar Read: I’m Tired of “Wokeness”

This article was originally published on 12 February 2019.

Albert Wilson

“Whatever that is done in darkness will come to light.” This is a saying that I live by to keep myself from harboring hatred and resentment towards the unfairness that runs rampant in the quotidian. This isn’t foolproof by any means, as can be seen of the Albert Wilson rape trial. Did he do anything in darkness that warranted this level of retribution in the light?

The law was created to punish those who did wrong, and protect the ones who did right. How is it that now those who are wrong and who are right now have a certain appearance? How is it that retribution takes different forms depending on what the defendant looks like?

Brock Turner, a White man, raped an unconscious White woman behind a dumpster in 2015 and was convicted in 2016. There was hard evidence that proved these allegations to be facts. There were even witnesses of this assault. His retribution took the form of a six-month sentence. He served only three of those months because prison was detrimental to his young psyche. He was even allowed to have a cellphone during the time he was incarcerated.

Albert Wilson, a Black man, was accused of raping an underage White woman in his apartment in 2016 and was convicted in 2019. There wasn’t even evidence to call circumstantial. Unlike with Turner, semen was not found in or on the victim, and I use that term loosely here. The only DNA found on the victim was on her chest, where he kissed her. Wilson testified to having done sexual acts with the victim but did not have sexual intercourse. Hell, there is surveillance footage of the apartment complex, showing the consensual and mutual exchanges going into the building and coming out of the building five minutes later, not stumbling incoherence that the victim claimed.

But when the White girl screams rape, it seems that our justice system does not stop to examine the evidence or lack thereof, ask the right questions to the right people, and get to the bottom of what happened. It didn’t matter to the all-White jury, most of whom were women, that there wasn’t any actual evidence to pin the proverbial tail on the donkey. It didn’t matter because the case boiled down to hearsay, and they only listened to the White voice.

The light’s retribution for what was not done in darkness is twelve years, and reportedly the “lightest sentence” issued for rape in Kansas. Wilson was sentenced to twelve years for a crime that there is no actual evidence saying that he committed. Where is the innocent until proven guilty? It seems that this kind of consideration is not colorblind, rather it sees color and discriminates accordingly.

If this case remains closed, Wilson might be on the fast track to joining the statistic of being a Black man wrongfully incarcerated via the lack of due diligence by the people who enforce these laws, meanwhile, White men like Turner are wrongfully freed.

We sweat the same sweat, bleed the same red blood, shed the same tears. While not all of us have melanin or the same amount of melanin, that should not determine how the law is enforced on us. The system is designed to protect, but the judges and the juries, they are the ones who turn it into a weapon.

“No weapon formed against you shall prosper / And every tongue which rises against you in judgment / You shall condemn,” Isaiah 54:17. While everyone might not have the same faith, I think it can be said unanimously that these weapons are indeed prospering. The voices that rise against us, though we do condemn, we still fall.

What can we do? What we have been doing: raising our own voices. People have taken to Twitter to put out the word and raise awareness. The articles written by news platforms and the website www.freealbertwilson.com had been retweeted several hundreds of thousands of times.

At this time, that is all that we can do besides hope and pray for either an acquittal, like what Michael Rosfeld received, an appeal, a retrial, or complete exoneration. Unfortunately, it seems like our justice system will provide neither.

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Antwon Rose

Black bodies, young and old, are being cut down by blue hands. This has become the American Normal, an epidemic that many have been fighting to find a cure for. Black Lives Matter is the largest movement of today, potentially since the Panthers. Their aim is to establish equality in the Land of the Free, to show that freedom belongs to Black people also.

Since the abolition of slavery, our chains aren’t visible, but that doesn’t make them any less present. Our movements are restricted through racial profiling, generalizations, and a fear of police. The police force was formed to protect people from people by people. This force is comprised of people who go above and beyond to make our neighborhoods and cities safer to reside in. Lately, I have begun to question, safe from whom?

What determines someone is dangerous? Reaching for an ID which is being asked for? For having on a hoodie with the hood up? For demanding to know why they’re being detained? For resisting arrest? For being Black? While the reasons behind these deaths aren’t certain, in the last few years, the number of fallen Black bodies has been on the rise. Unarmed Black bodies. Unarmed Black bodies of young men and women, of fathers and mothers, of brothers and sisters.

People make mistakes of all proportions. We are all imperfectly human. What makes a person worth their salt is their ability and willingness to take responsibility for their mistakes.

We have to hold everyone to the same extent of the law, which includes law enforcement. Simply because they enforce the law does not mean that they are above it. When an officer is killed, the person or persons responsible for it are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. When a civilian is killed, sometimes the officer is fired, maybe they face jail time, but more often than not it feels as if everyone is getting off scot-free, with a slap on the wrist called an acquittal.

Antwon Rose II was seventeen when he and his friend Zaijuan Hester were pulled over for driving a car that fit the description of one that just did a drive by a mile and a half away. Why did they run after being pulled over? What Black boy in this America would sit still when they see the boys in blue in their rearview mirror? And that officer is White, which is, unfortunately, the common scenario for these wrongful deaths? Get away or die trying.

There was footage taken from an apartment window of the shooting. As discussed in court and what can be plainly seen, Rose and Hester were running. All of a sudden ex-Officer Michael Rosfeld was shooting. There was no pursuit, just three rounds echoing in the silence in East Pittsburgh. I watched this video at least twenty times, trying to see anything other than another unarmed Black body hitting the ground with injuries that proved fatal. Each time I jumped as the shots pierced through the air.

There were three people in the car that was seen in surveillance footage that fled from a drive-by shooting. When Rosfeld and his partner pulled the car over, it would make sense to wait for backup since there was no telling how the situation would unfold. It was a choice to engage the teenagers without waiting. It was a choice to not pursue Rose and Hester as they fled. It was a choice to shoot at them, and those three shots landing into Rose’s back. Rosfeld was charged with criminal homicide, which includes murder, voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter under Pennsylvania law, according to CNN.

As of March 22nd, 2019, Rosfeld was fully acquitted of all charges that could have been upheld. The nation, and especially Rose’s loved ones, are in uproar over the fact the jury’s deliberations lasted less than four hours. Rosfeld was given the proverbial slap on the wrist for murdering a teenage boy, like many others before him.

Race relations in America gets bleaker by the day. America shouldn’t be a battleground. Lives shouldn’t be lost due to itchy trigger fingers and bad snap judgments. We are losing our young people who will make a better tomorrow. While these lives cannot be revived, we can at least in their own effect positive change so that no more bodies join theirs in the statistic of Black lives lost as a result of police violence.

Press Play & Focus on the Future

I learned about the history of blackface in my music history class back in my junior year of college. It focused on popular music and blackface was a prominent form of entertainment dating back to the 1830s. In the late 1850s there was a surge of Irish immigrants due to the famine that overtook Ireland. The crops failed, leaving death to claim the Irish by means of hunger and/or disease.

At this time, they weren’t considered White. According to author and historian Christopher Klein’s article published on History, they were even considered lower than Blacks for not being Protestants. American Protestants were afraid that the Pope was sending his army to take over America. This fear stemmed from when America’s forefathers fled Britain for religious freedom (Klein). While they lived in the same slums as Blacks, they were still not accepted as White.

In an interview with author John Strausbaugh published on Vox, Strausbaugh states that blackface was taken up by Irish immigrants in order to set them apart from Blacks. At the end of the day, they were still just as fair skin as Whites. At the end of each performance, they would wipe the black off their faces, to say that well, at least we weren’t actually Black. Through the popularity of these performances, they gained White status (Strausbaugh).

Blackface, I thought, no longer held a place in society. I thought we made progress. However, our black skin is still worn by white sheep who want to be the big bad wolf. With Gucci’s sweater that has an extended turtleneck which covers the face but has a large mouth printed around the hole in the neck, how were we not supposed to understand that as a new form of blackface?

It would have been a completely different story if the turtleneck was simply longer than normal because in my opinion, the extended neck isn’t blackface. It just functions as a scarf and ski mask without all the extra material and allows for warmth without the bulk. But I and others like me cannot just look past the glaringly obvious. Apologies are not enough when discrimination, bias, and ignorance are stigmatizing our black skin. More has to be done. Reformation needs to start now.

Daniel Day, affectionately known as Dapper Dan, is an African-American fashion designer who continues to work in collaboration with Gucci after this incident. It is a bold move that I believe others are not willing to take. Day is thinking about the future of Black fashion designers.

The fashion industry is notorious for being racially exclusive. Take a look at advertisements in magazines and on television. Take a look at the runways. While the magazines might feature designers and models of color, the runways have always contrasted it with the whitewash. As Day has said in several interviews, he went through a lot to understand the industry/business and to keep his brand growing. These large brands are the stepping stones for Black designers to use to catapult their careers.

By boycotting Gucci, that is a “now” solution. This will only resolve people’s gripes now but what about later? If we continue to boycott every incident individually, nothing will ever get done. Think of it as constantly pausing a movie every two minutes. It makes the movie much longer than it is, the plot gets disjointed by the constant stop and start, and the end gets pushed farther and farther away. By trying to handle each incident in real time, we are stopping and starting, pushing off the reformation that we seek. Reform will not happen if we keep getting in our own way.

To make change, we have to be the change. We need to take a stand for the future and not everything that happens in the present. This is not to say that Gucci should be given a free pass, but as Day said in an interview with The Huffington Post, “this is an opportunity to learn.” This incident with Gucci is another moment that you could call a pause. There have been several pauses before this one and can be several pauses after this, but why not make this incident the last pause? In this pause, we can initiate the process of change and let it develop over time like a plot in a movie? Otherwise, we will always be dissatisfied with how things are and always call for change.