The other day, someone told me that they didn’t care about the Black Lives Matter movement. So when I asked if they care about the killings of black people every single day, they literally told me, “no.” This, of course, infuriated me, which I expressed, but I went on to show them exactly why they need to care.

I said that it makes them incredibly ignorant, and someone who I don’t want in my presence if they don’t care. (To tell me this is to literally spit on the graves of all of my ancestors and every other black person’s ancestors, and on the thousands of lives lost due to police brutality, as well as the loved ones they left behind). Now, I’m not saying that police are the only ones killing black people, but there has been an unacceptable amount of police who abuse their power. This is a fact that can’t continue to be ignored, but something that gets swept under the rug in many cases.

For more than two hours, me and this person sat side by side, and I brought up article after article showing them just how distorted their views were.

If this were two years ago, I would have been much less understanding, and my response might have been less than kind. Although I believe that my response would have been extremely justified in this context, I wanted and needed to take this as an opportunity to educate this clearly ignorant and lost person. To have them tell me that they had no idea that all of this was happening in our country, told me they lived under multiple rocks. This begs the question: How many more people simply “do not know?” How many more people are lost and in need of being shown the facts? How many people are turning a blind eye to the harsh realities that so many black people face in this country?

This person proceeded to tell me that I needed statistics to back up my claims, so I gave them a list of names of black people killed in America in 2016 alone, not to mention in previous years. To say that they were shocked would be an understatement, but I was asked to provide statistics, so that’s exactly what I did. The truth is rarely pretty, but in this case, the truth is downright heartbreaking and dehumanizing, but it is a truth that I felt inclined to shed some light on.

Throughout our conversation, I was continually thanked. I was told that I was teaching them something, and that now they feel more aware of what’s happening and what has been happening to black people for centuries.

I have to remind myself that what is common sense to me, might be difficult for another person to comprehend.

We exchanged stories of experiences with race throughout our rather short lives, seeing as we are both in our early 20s. This person told me that they once stole something from a store as a child, and that when they gave it back, the people who worked there were thankful, but they did not get in trouble. I said that as a black person, it would not have mattered what age you were, but that stealing something could have gotten you into more trouble than someone who was not black. Regardless. Of. Age. This comment left them speechless, but like I said before, the truth is rarely pretty.

This is obviously an important conversation that needed to be had.

This individual told me that they loved learning and being corrected when wrong, which was good for me, because I was literally spewing out information for hours. I could have kept going, but researching the thousands of stories of black people being killed for their blackness is inherently exhausting. It feels like this is a never ending cycle. I am tired. I am so tired. More than that, I am afraid of being black in this world where we are oppressed on a daily basis for no reason other than our blackness.

When you’re black, to many people, no matter what you do and achieve, you will never be anything more than the color of your skin. This narrow-minded, bigoted viewpoint deeply saddens me, because the black people I know are doctors, artists, lawyers, business people and so much more. The black people I know are some of the most brilliant people I have ever known, but I know that the world as a whole doesn’t see this.

I think being black in America is by far the bravest thing any of us has ever done and probably will ever do.

To be unapologetically black in a country that is not and has never been here for us and has a history of oppressing and killing us makes us warriors. All we can try to do is to educate those around us who aren’t paying attention to what’s happening all around us. When these moments arise, we have the power and the gift to inform and teach others. We have the power to make more people “woke” to all of the violence happening at the hands of people who are supposed to protect us. At the end of the day, if I can have more of these conversations, I feel like I’m doing right by someone. Because we matter. We matter so much.

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Kassie G

Writing since August 2016 · 1 story contributed