Collectively, we have a moral and ethical obligation as a people to change this world. It is simply a broken, fully fractured foundation we are all standing on. It isn’t just shaky and unstable; it is crumbling beneath our feet.
The past three weeks I have felt this earthquake that has receded the ocean and brought in a tsunami. Black lives matter. Just as my white privilege has allowed my life to be safeguarded and allowed to matter, people who were born with skin darker than mine are entitled to the exact same rights and protections as I am. The exact same. There is no reason it should not be that way.
Racism is a public heath crisis that is murdering and injuring people – my fellow citizens. It is robbing families of parents, children, siblings, friends – human beings. Could you imagine being told that your child or sibling or parent was murdered in the street simply because of the color of their skin? In the United States of America. No. This cannot stand.
The system wasn’t broken over time. This country was built on the most cracked foundation. This country was built on the backs of a people who did absolutely nothing to deserve how they were treated or how they have continued to be treated over the past 401 years.
Silence allows for this abuse of power to go unchecked. A joke, a law, a stare, a speech, a police officer’s lack of trust in the people who pay them to protect their community and the highest office in the land – and arguably the world – the president of the United States of America. Why do we accept this? Not anymore. The water of the tsunami has receded creating the most powerful force. Just like a tsunami in progress, the power of the people has come rushing back in – the only thing that will stop this. This nation will be changed and I will make sure it happens. I hope you will too.
150 Million people of voting age did not vote in 2016. Let’s change that. Keep protesting. Keep demanding action. Then we vote. A change is gonna come. Now.
Meyers is the granddaughter of Clarence and Alice Winer of Prairie Village, Kansas.
