I think this video speaks for itself. It’s sad but this is true. I know many children who think that since they were born black they can’t be good as others. A lot of girls try to change their identity and wish they were white just so they can get respect. There seems to be so few positive black names in this country…not because they don’t exist but because this nation likes to focus on the bad things that people have done instead of the good. When we turn on the TV and watch the news we see all the bad things and automatically associate black with being bad and white with being good. We even tear each other down when we try to establish good things. If you speak proper English you talk “white” as if a black person is incapable of being educated. If we go to an primarily white college we are trading our own not because we want to advance in this world but we are trying to be better than the people we grew up with. Why do we do that? There are many nationalities in this world and we need to become familiar with them. How can you compete with someone if you don’t even know them? If you stay around one race for your entire life you aren’t really preparing yourself for the real world and if you try to expand your horizons your friends/family look at you as being a traitor.

This video really touched me because I came across it at the perfect time. Proposal 2 was passed in Michigan because over 58% of voters do not support Affirmative Action. That was the one thing we had going for us…that was our “easy ticket”. It’s not easy being an African-American but Affirmative Action does play a major role in our lives. I don’t know if I would have gotten into the University of Michigan without Affirmative Action. I think it would have still been possible, just a little bit harder. I had good test scores, my grades were great, but growing up in a Detroit Public School was a set-back. So now we will have to pay for not being rich and able to afford the best schooling among other things. Proposal 2 not only effects African-Americans it effects all minorities and females in college admissions, government hiring and government contracting. It’s hard to see something like that be approved by your neighbors because I know how hard it is to succeed if you grow up in a city like Detroit. It’s not possible, but it is hard. I really hope this state doesn’t change much because of this. All I know is everyone’s comment to me lately has been “How does it feel to know that you live in a racist state?” It’s really hard to deal with. There’s not much more I can say.

On a final note I thought I’d close with a poem. I fell in love with this poem when I was in school and it was performed during Black History Month.