Marco Mancinelli is the artist behind this amazing photo. It was a photo that touched me on a deep level. I have always believed that racism is a learned behavior that takes hold of a child at a young age. Children are not inherently racist, but it is a behavior learned from the environment they are growing and learning in. This means that children as young as three begin to see, learn, and display racial behavior if they are seeing every day at home. There is one piece of news that is hopeful; experts say that the behavior can be “unlearned”. I somehow doubt that but who knows. I grew up in a very diverse home, my mother raised me to believe that and treat everyone equal. We were no better than our neighbors who were at first Hispanic and then yes Black. My brother and I went to a school that was diverse and I will not sit here and tell you we didn’t see color, of course we did, we knew we were different, but we never thought we were better or that race was even a part of our thoughts but we see each other’s as equal. As I got older I went to a predominantly black high school and while my father didn’t like it, my first taste of racism, my mother, whom was not married to my father by this time, said it was a good school and she did have custody of us.
Fast forward to today, I am married to an amazing man who happens to be black, and I have a passion for civil rights and the mind of an activist. I speak up and out when I see injustice and I will not let anyone no matter their color, faith, or culture be mistreated based on that fact alone. Let me put this really plain so that every person understands. If you are white, you have had privilege that people of color have not had. There is no debating it because of our whiteness we have not had to be looked at a certain way, or followed through a store as if we are thief’s, or pulled over and have our license ran just to see if we have a warrant. Please don’t take offense, it is not your fault and you can’t help what color your born, just as our black brothers and sister can’t help the color they were born. That being said black privilege, well it just doesn’t happen. Yes slavery was hundreds of years ago and civil rights were still being fought for in the 50’s, 60‘s, and 70’s. You may and probably didn’t own slaves, your family may not have, but that does not mean that kind of treatment is not a mental issue that is passed from generation to generation. What kind of person does one have to be to rape a woman who is not your wife but because she is your property or hang a person from a tree and have a bar-b-q to showcase such indecency. The mental treatment of slaves is an abuse that affected them to their very core. Abuse as we have learned effects a child their entire life, and it takes years of treatment for them to regain any kind of self-esteem, this never happened for the people of color that were held as slaves and thus is was a mentality that was passed to their children, and from generation to generation that same way of thinking has held on to these people to today and continues on until we do something about, they just want to be treated as equals.
We as white people have to, even if we never had anything to do with it (because I know that is what some of you will say), make up for the past of other white people. We do that by standing up and speaking out against inequality. We stand up and speak out again police brutality. We stand up and speak out for civil rights. This is the only way our people can heal and begin to come together. Why shouldn’t we stand together we all desire the same thing. Love, success, and a happy ever after, and don’t we all deserve that no matter what skin color we have, I believe so!