A little disappointed.

As I was watching Anderson Cooper 360 with my aunt last night, a segment came on that was about how the Skinheads/Nazi party and the Black Panther party (both racial supremist groups) had risen again and are now fighting in a racial battle in the town of Paris, Texas.

I can't even begin to describe how I felt at that moment. Kind of like the mother of a child who had stopped doing something bad, and then all of a sudden, years later, they start doing that same bad thing. Like being disappointed in someone. The reason I felt this way was because, in the third grade, my class had studied the Civil Rights Movement. I became fascinated with it, and was extremely against any form of racism. I read every book that I could lay my hands on (and was at my reading level), and my parents would have to listen to me talking about it all the time. I knew that all of the lynchings and segregation had stopped (for the most part), and the groups had left the public eye. Hearing that they had come back, it felt like we had taken ten steps back. In my head, I was thinking one thing...Really?? Did they really just take us back forty years? I thought my generation had gotten over it. Guess not.

Living in the northeast, I don't see racism. I can't remember even one incidence of seeing racism. So imagining people who had differently colored skin being treated like trash wasn't a realistic idea to me. I couldn't see it happening, and it still doesn't make sense to me. What kind of deep-set anger could someone have to have to feel the need to drag someone on the back of your pick-up truck, and kill them, just because their skin is darker than yours? Why does the pigment of someone's skin have anything to do with their worth as a human being that walks this earth? Everyone on this planet was born the same as everyone else, and the same effort was put into each child being put on this earth - so why can't everyone be seen the same way when they walk down the street?

Come on, people - we have a BLACK PRESIDENT. He's taking our country in his hands and making it something better. We all thought the racism issue had died out. But these groups that are talking about the Nazis and the Klu Klux Klan, are back from the '60s and the early 1900s. This is...simply rediculous. If there is truly anger coming from the white racists, there must be something truly wrong in their lives that they feel the need to take out that anger on African-Americans - and that anger resulted in the death of Brandon McClelland in 2008. My family has always been strong against racism, and my family has preached it in their churches and communities. Everyone deserves the respect our mamas taught us to give. Why does the shade of our skin make that any different?

It's just wrong.

Peace and Love,
yourgotogirl