Young, Black and Male in America

To be black in America is loaded. It is “loaded” with history, with race, with deprivation, with rejection, with dehumanization, with disrespect, with stereotypes, with poverty, with abuse, with lack, with aggression, and with sordid imagery. For anyone to suggest that we as a society have moved past our perceptions about people of color and even women is just wrong. Have we made progress? Sure we have. We have made enormous progress; but many people had to agitate, engage, and even die for the most basic of human rights at the most basic levels of our society to be granted. Perhaps, it is time we have to do this again.  We have rested on the laurels of struggles past, versus stepping up to deal with struggles present.

Racial bias is real. Racial profiling is real. Racial inequity is real. Racial injustice is real. Don’t take my word for it read the science on racial “profiling.” Read the science around the study of “unconscious bias” at Harvard University. Study history and how black men have been treated by the courts. Study history and see how juries have treated black victims, and black defendants. Study modern day sentencing guidelines and how black men (and women) are disproportionately and more harshly convicted for the same or lesser crimes as their white counterparts. The proof is all right there. If you dare to look for it, and admit that there is a race problem still in America.