Black people just want to be treated equally

Dear Donald J. Trump

Over the years there has been a hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter. Some people like to argue that all lives matter, but if that were true there would be no Black Lives Matter movement.

This all started in 2012 when Trayvon Martin was shot for looking suspicious, and his shooter (George Michael Zimmerman) was not held accountable for his actions. He was put on trial and found not guilty. In 2016, 258 black people were killed by police brutality in the United States. Thirty-nine of these people were unarmed. One of them, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old father of five, became the 135th black person killed by police in 2016. The incident is on video, and it can clearly be seen that he simply did what the police told him to.

As a young black woman, I have been racially profiled. One particular time, after the movies, two of my black friends and I went into a store. The store employees continually asked us if we needed help and followed us around. After we left, I realized that they could have called security on us. We could have been one of the 258 people killed by police brutality.

In my opinion, not much has changed for people of color in America. Slavery, segregation, and now the reason behind Black Lives Matter, are all the same thing. We are being treated differently because of the color of our skin. Black people just want to be treated equally. There is no reason for us to be killed or even looked at differently. There is no reason for us to feel unsafe or insecure because of our skin color.

Why does the mistreatment satisfy people? Does it make these people happy to make us feel like we don’t belong simply because of the color of our skin? Does what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for mean absolutely nothing to them? We should be judged by who we are as a person, not by skin color. Unfortunately, this is not what’s happening. In fact, not much has changed. So, Mr. Trump, what are you going to do about this? How are you going to help with this situation?

Sincerely,

Nyah Thomas, Grade 7, Friends Academy