As the USA and the World continues it’s fight for equality. I wanted to share what is it’s really like to be a minority in the USA. A lot of people who genuinely don’t understand the black lives matters movement. They think it’s about minorities against police. When black lives matter is way more than that! I’m sure you all know that Im latino of African descent. Meaning my ancestors were brought to the americas from slavery. As someone who actually knows the people who originally founded the black lives movement. I thought I might as well spread some light on this one. Before you jump into conclusions, please read this whole post. I would love to have an open and respectful conversation with all opinions.

When we say black lives matter, it’s not about starting a race war or we believe all cops are bad. It’s not like what some of the news is pushing out. What we mean when we say mean black lives matter is that our lives has value too. There is are a lot of hard working minorities that pay their taxes. The same taxes that funds the local police departments. The same police that harrass us or even worse. When people say defund the police, some mean it litterally. However, most hard working minorities mean if you are going to get money from our taxes, please don’t ruin or take our lives when we did nothing wrong. We matter as humans beings. Here are some stories of what is like to be a minority in the USA.

My childhood friend’s mom was someone who always had a smile on her face. She always knew how to make people smile and feel good. Her name was Maria. She was an afrolatino like me. One day, Maria saw that I was really down. She smiled at me and told me that no matter what you are going through, the sun always rises the next day. It will shine light to places you thought were only shadows. A week later she was killed by a stray bullet. Leaving my friend as an orphan. His dad was in jail and his mother now gone. My friend beat the odds and became a professional basketball player in Puerto Rico and Europe. Sadly until this day, her murder case remains unsolved. Sitting in a cold case file. They never attempted to find where the bullet came from. Out of respect for my friend, I won’t put the article’s link. If you want to see the story google novato woman killed by stray bullet.

My childhood friend’s brother went to college and got a degree. He was a clean person. One day at a party, someone called the cops for a noise complaint. The cops came and freaked out my childhood friend’s brother. He ran when he wasn’t supposed to. Thinking he committed a crime when he never did. He just knew he was guilty until proven innocent here, if you don’t have money and/or you are a minority. So he ran like he was guilty. Sadly, he was the only black kid in a party full of white and latinos. The police got him and were only able to charge him with resisting arrest. The time he spent in jail changed him. He got fired from his job because he wasn’t able to go to work. He spent 10 months behing bars. Jail mentally broke him. After spending time in jail or prison, you are never the same. Last thing I heard is that he became an addict. His life was ruined.

I can write more stories. Even a book about about my friends and I experiences. However, I hope you understand by now that the USA can be diffcult for minorities. We still smile even when the odds are highly against us. Hope you see that black lives matters is not only against police brutally. It is about a whole system being against us. We just want to be treated as a person first and not anything less. I love the usa because it’s where I grew up. However, there is always room for improvement. It’s truly amazing to see people of every color around the world caring about my struggles. It’s hard to put in words but I just want to say thank you for trying to understand!! It’s greatly appreciated 😁