To Whom It May Concern

Checking in to see how everyone is doing. 2020 has been a lot to deal with.  The pandemic has caused a lot of mixed emotions in itself. I know it has me rethinking a lot of things. I had no idea how bad my anxiety would be this year. While dealing with COVID and having concern for family and friends who lost their jobs, we were dealt the deaths of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Shortly after, we had to watch a white woman threaten a black man with the police. We watched her call 911, telling them that there was an African American man in Central Park and she felt her life was endanger. Reminding us of the injustice of Central 5, she screamed in the phone while almost choking her dog to death. We sat angry with all of the shit that was going on, trying our hardest to stay sane until May 25th. An African American man by the name of George Floyd was accused of using a counterfeit 20.00 bill. Because of this, for 8 minutes and 46 seconds we watched a police officer pin him down by prying his knee into the back of our brother’s neck. We watched as he pleaded, we watched him call for his mom, watched him beg the officer to not kill him. We watched as by standers and first responders implore the officer to relieve George. Even after he became unresponsive the officer remained in his position for almost 3 minutes. That same day, we watched media outlets cover his death, over and over. Can you imagine the outrage? We thought organizing peaceful protests would get him the justice that he deserved only to be met with the same excessive force by men in the same outfits. Imagine being stuck in the house for month after month because your people are highest at risk of getting sick and dying, watching people who look like you at risk when they encounter the same people who are hired to serve and protect, and watching your people encounter different white women who put them at risk to be killed or thrown in jail with just one phone call. Imagine being fed the fuck up.

 

This, in my opinion, is what brought on riots and unrest throughout the country. Watching this happen time and time again with no repercussions left us enraged. I’ve watched people who live in destroyed communities point the fingers at their neighbors. Communities that were clearly destroyed for years by lack of resources and education, I watched some of these people take to social media to call their own neighbors “dumb” and blame them for “destroying” their own community. I was astonished to see how blind some of my people were. It was in that moment that I realized that most people living in these communities have come so accustomed and complacent with the lack of resources that they have been given that they have forced themselves to believe that their own people were to blame. I watched them take up for companies who have done nothing for the communities that they are in. These same companies that took millions of dollars in bailout money during a pandemic and watched our families try and survive off of 1200 band aid checks handed to them by a President who took pride in providing signatures for. These same companies that didn’t decrease prices, it was business as usual to them. It also made me realize how far we had to go as a people. The first step in asking for better is realizing you’ve been dealt a bad hand in the first place. Realizing that nobody living in these minority communities can ever be the blame for lack of job opportunities, dirty water, police surveillance, no health care, excessive probationary/parole periods and being forced to attend a school with 35 to 1 student-teacher ratio.

To all of my white friends reading this I hope you use your privilege to promote equality as often as you can, because although this war may seem divided, it CANNOT be won without you. Your minority friends have heavy hearts. We are exhausted and we are tired and we have to pretend to be fine everyday. It’s a huge burden to carry around everyday. To my minority brothers and sisters I love you and support you, no matter how you chose to express your frustrations.
With Love,
NeezyB