I am sick and tired of the same narrative playing out over and over again across this country. A black person is killed over cigarettes, a bag of skittles, for selling CDs, etc., and the murderer walks. It grinds my gears that my father, a hardworking man who provides very well for his household, is followed home by the police because of the car he drives. They only leave him alone when the garage door opens up and they realize that he actually owns a home in that neighborhood.
It angers me that my two-year-old is growing up in a world where she can be roughed up or even killed for the most frivolous things. Things that would earn her white counterparts a slap on the wrist and not a bullet to the chest. And I am angry that I have to have true concern for my family. Especially my husband, father, brothers, uncles, and male cousins. I’m concerned for them day in and day out, in 2016, in America. I’m tried of the RIP hashtags, the pointless protests, and the destructive riots. I want people to be angry. And I want them to channel that anger into something that is conducive to true change.
image: Maina Kiai