For 401 years in America black folks have been battling injustice. We’ve been through 246 years of slavery another 100 years of segregation and Jim Crow and a Civil Rights Movement we’re still in. The National Housing Act of 1934 actually made it legal to redline therefore, pushing us into the same hoods regardless of income. Redlining, for those that don’t know, was when banks would literally draw a line to where they would provide loans to black folks and where they wouldn’t. Thus, creating all black neighborhoods.
For the past 50 plus years or so we’ve watched the government drop drugs into those very areas and cut the federal funding to those said areas creating the chaos we now see. Oh am I lying? Pull up Oliver North and the Iran Contra scandal and follow the drugs into South Central Los Angeles.
This is before we even talk about police brutality that Colin Kaepernick kneeled in protest against.
All we’ve ever asked for is to be treated fairly in this country. We aren’t looking for revenge! We’re looking to be treated fairly and we can’t see that dream become a reality until folks that don’t look like us stand with us to change this racist country’s mindset.
Therefore, we need more people like ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit to use their platforms to stand with up and fight against this sickness that has killed far too many black folks and ruined countless generations since the middle passage.
On College GameDay on Saturday morning Herbstreit became very emotional and tearful while discussing the current state of injustice in America.
He said, “I was talking to David Shaw, the head coach at Stanford and he shared a quote from Benjamin Franklin. He said, ‘Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.’ The Black community is hurting.”
He went on to say, “How do you listen to these stories and not feel pain and not want to help? You can’t relate to that if you’re white, but you can listen and you can try to help because this is not OK.”
If more of our white brothers and sisters felt the same way Herbstreit felt and opened their mouths to fight against this injustice. We would see a major shift in this country in terms of racial equality. There wouldn’t continue to be police unions and systems in place that says that it’s completely okay to treat black folks this way.
When a dirty cop steps out of line and kills an unarmed person of color he or she would be fired, prosecuted and convicted. The day they start sending these wreck-less officers to jail will be the day things start to change. All we want is to be treated fairly and to be truly protected and served by the police and not constantly targeted, abused and killed by them.
Right On Herbstreit! You’ve been selected in a trade for Jason Whitlock and Herschel Walker. Truth is the most powerful weapon there is to fight racism and ignorance. Stop me when I start lyin’!