Your Voice Matters: Injustices Being Unsilenced from an Educators Perspective

       Why Should African American People Exercise their Right to Vote?  Election Day is coming soon, and I felt that it was only right to do a blog on the importance of voting, and why African American people should absolutely exercise their right to vote. We live in a world where we see injustices happening around us everyday. Unfortunately, a lot of these injustices are usually happening to people of color. The list of injustices goes on and on, but I will name a few: school to prison pipeline in poverty stricken areas, police brutality, high incarceration rates for non-violent crimes, and so much more. When you really think about it, why are things the way that they are? Well, we could make the biblical argument that we live in a sinful fallen world. We could also make the argument that this is just the sad world we live in, and it will only get worse. We could also open our eyes and realize that the people who are placed in positions of power in o...

The history of Black hair goes back centuries. Most people believe that it all started with the Egyptians as they wore dreadlocks in their hair, but Black hair has a history all on its own. Not only is Black hair seen as a way of expressing oneself, it is also seen as a journey that each Black women and man partakes in to define themselves. Black hair has an identity all on it's own. It is super versatile, and you will probably see a Black women change her hair several times over the course of a year. It can be straight one day, in an afro the next day, and in braids the week after. Black hair is art, but unfortunately society does not see it that way. This issue of Black hair being seen as nappy, unacceptable, not beautiful, and undesirable started way before the 21st century era. This has been an issue for a very long time, and still remains an issue today. This is why so many Black women go to great extremes to straighten their hair, and spend thousands of dollars a year on weav...

As a Black woman in today's society, I feel pressure from everywhere. As a child, most Black women are taught to be strong and not depend on anyone for anything. You can imagine how this is problematic. Some Black woman are even taught to be totally independent, and this causes problems when it is time to settle down to be in a relationship, because psychologically the Black women has to reteach herself that it is okay to depend on someone else than herself. This is not the only pressure that Black women face in today's society. We face having to smile despite everything NOT being okay. We are also required to hold the family together, and to never break or get tired. We are practically supposed to be superwoman, but this is not realistic. Why are Black women taught to be strong and hold all the pieces together from falling apart? I ask this because culturally we do not require this from our White women counterparts. For whatever reason, they are allowed to feel, be fragile, an...

After the death of George Floyd, we have all witnessed how everyone has a different opinion about what happened, and how we as a society should view this injustice. There has been people who argued that what had happened to George Floyd was totally unacceptable, but he still had a lot of incidents with law enforcement, so they can see why he was involved with law enforcement again during his death. Some people have stated that the death of George Floyd was wrong, that there needs to be a change when it comes to systemic racism, and how Black people should not be viewed as less valuable than their White counterparts. Then there has been arguments that stated there is so much Black on Black crime happening in Black neighborhoods, how can the Black Lives Matter Movement be seen as a creditable public figure for Black people, when they clearly do not see all Black lives as valuable. The people who have made this argument feel like the Black Lives Matter Movement should focus on people who ...

If you are reading this today, then you have probably heard about all of the racial tension that is happening in our society right now, but this has long been an issue. As I sat to reflect on all that is happening in our society today, I now have come to terms with how my ancestors must have felt when they were beaten, raped, violated, and forced to work for free. Even writing this saddens me, because the truth of the matter is that many African American people today do not know who their ancestors are. You may be wondering why not? The simple answer is the slave trade. When African people were forced to come over to the Americas against their own will, we then became dismantled. We were taken away from our families, our home, our way of life. We went from being humans, to a price tag to sell to the next European that wanted to profit off of our free labor. This pain that Black people have suffered came way before George Floyd. We as a people have a history of suffering, but still bein...

If you have turned on the news this week, or even taken a look at social media, it is a very good chance that you have heard about George Floyd's death, and Joe Biden's offensive statement towards Black people who support Trump. It seems that our world is becoming more and more desensitized, and racism is becoming a bigger issue. I think that we could even argue that not much has changed as far as racism from slavery. Think about it, the systems that dehumanized Black people during slavery, are the same systems that dehumanize them today, they just come in different forms. These forms could be seen by high incarceration rates of Black men, redlining Black people to keep them in certain living areas, Black people being killed and brutalized by White cops, and the list goes on and on. These incidents that are happening today are not to far off from what was happening in the past. The only difference is that society wants us to think we are all equal, because they do not put the t...

We live in a society today where injustices are all around us. You turn on the news you see it, you go for a walk you see it, you go to work you see it, and it is something that has become the norm to hear about repeatedly, because it happens so frequently. In the mist of this, we as a society are constantly trying to figure out how to handle these issues that we see from day to day. We may ignore them because we feel like we do not have the solution, we may protest with others to get our point across, or we may find other outlets to express ourselves, while still feeling like we do not want to be seen as a radical. If you are a Black person, you know this struggle way too well. According to Du Bois, it is called the "Double Consciousness". Double Consciousness according to the Sanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is "inward twoness, putatively experienced by African-Americans because of their racialized oppression and disvaluation in a White-dominated society". Thi...