Battle for Supremacy
“The architecture of race dominance is temporal; for inferiority is a choice and superiority is ignorance multiplied. If you separate black from white, our nationality is mankind.”-Anonymous
Today, we live in a society where we are bound by the shackles of a daunting past forged in slavery and the idea that one race is more superior to the other. Truth is that change can only come from those who seek it instead of those who settle for the acceptance of white dominance as the social norm. The biggest hindrance is allowing ourselves to disregard equality because of an inability to leave history in the past. How can we as a nation move forward if we continue to be subjected to the intrinsic issues of racial prejudice that began many years ago?
In December of 2006, six black teenagers were convicted in the beating of a white student Justin Barker in Jena, Louisiana. This beating followed the hanging of a noose in the high school courtyard and strong racial tensions. Racial discrimination in the legal system attempted to charge the boys with attempted second degree murder. The case became even more publicized when one of the males was tried as an adult. In other cases in Jena, white teenagers were charged leniently. One of the largest protests was launched in Jena and petitions began to circulate across the country. It had all been too good to be true. America had not been ridded of racial tension or racism period. Regardless of how much activists fought and people unified, states of the south would always be divided. The up and down battle to one superior nation had turned back to the past. Since when did our country have an owner? When did color become an operator?
Just six years later, February 26, 2012, the murder of an unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin sparked an outrage in our country. His murderer, a white man was found innocent. Just two years later, Michael Brown, another unarmed African American teenager was murder by a white police officer in Ferguson Missouri. Protests and violence broke out nationwide. The question of whether black boys were being hunted came into question. The only answer that could be concluded was that racism was alive and brewing throughout this nation. The ethics and procedures of our justice system were brought to the forefront when the ethics and procedures of a nation that chose to ignore its problems should’ve been the topic of conversation.
No one considers the adverse effects that the actions of the elder generations have played upon the forthcoming generation. No one wants to say that I raised my child to hate blacks or that I raised my child to hate whites. There isn’t anyone willing to say they have forced a mental slavery that we are bound to live in a world where one race has to be inferior to another. How is it that a nation can go from effectively making steps toward the purpose in which it was founded upon to disgracing its very existence? We can’t be proud to be American if we can’t see the ideals of a true American. For so long it’s been a power struggle of men over women and blacks over white, but it is time it all stops. It is critical to our existence that we as individuals find the common ground of mankind to become superior as one.
For so long blacks and whites have struggled with the existence of their counterpart that they neglected the common goal to desert the past for an onward future. We talk about living just lives and being good people but in some way we all find ourselves stepping backward in our judgments of others around us. It seems to me that we are all inferior to the plague of letting go of a rigid past but we are superior in pointing the finger at who is wrong. It is for African Americans to point the finger at Caucasians for they did begin the multitude of issues between each other but at some point you have to forgive and move on. It is just as easy for Caucasians to point the finger at African Americans for holding a weight of their ancestors over their heads today. You can’t change the past; you can only make efforts to move past it for the sake of the future. We are not black, we are not white, and we are mankin