Ashli Howell (Contributor)
While most people’s newsfeeds have been covered in ALS Ice Bucket challenge videos, a worthy cause, I cannot help but be confused as to how so few people are talking about Ferguson, Missouri. Then I thought about what I was saying about Ferguson, Missouri: nothing. Sure, I’d posted an article here or there, but when it came to real substance I had nothing. If I’m being honest, it is because I don’t know that I have any place to speak about my opinion on race. I recognize the privilege that comes along with the random chance of being born with white skin, so I wasn’t sure that I could speak up and say what is going on in our society, not just in Ferguson, is wrong.
Then I heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR). Shereen Marisol Meraji was at a coffee shop in Ferguson, about two miles away from the protests. She spoke with several people, but a woman named Katie stuck out to me. Katie told Shereen “…I want to take my kids outside without having to hear helicopters swarming over my house.” Katie made it quite clear that she did not support the protesters, she just wanted everything to go back to normal so her children could play outside without helicopters flying overhead. Now, I don’t have kids yet, but I can tell you that at the bottom of the list of things I would want for my hypothetical future children is for them to be able to go outside without hearing helicopters over their house.
This may sound strange, but it’s true. If the worst thing that my children have to cope with is playing outside while helicopters fly overhead, they’re doing pretty well. You see, I want my children to be able to go outside and appreciate everyone, no matter their skin color. I want them to go outside and not have some preconceived notion that people who are different from them are bad in some way. I want them to live in a world where African Americans don’t make up nearly half of the prison population, despite accounting for less than fifteen percent of the total population. I want these hypothetical future children of mine to not live in a society where a young, unarmed, black man is not laying in the street for four hours after he’s been shot six times by a police officer.
To create this world, though, I cannot stand idly by wondering whether or not I have a place in creating it. I absolutely have to say something or else I make myself complicit in what is happening in our society. I cannot pretend to know the prejudice and discrimination that people of color face in America. I do, however, know that it is wrong. There is no hiding behind justification for blatant discrimination and racism, it is just wrong. The murder of Michael Brown may not have been about race. I don’t know that anyone can really answer that questions definitively, but it ignited the racial tensions that existed in Ferguson, Missouri and across the United States. No matter what your opinion, whether you believe it’s not about race, it is, or if you don’t care, it is important to remember that at the end of the day we are all just people.
