THE MODERN LIFE PROBLEM
By Sol
As a student of the Telluride Mountain School, I participated in the two week trip to the Deep South. Even though the history of this trip was not the history of my home country like it was for every other student, I believe it still impacted me and made me realize things I had never comprehended during regular school days. I think one of the many things that had impacted me the most during the trip was the Legacy Museum. The Legacy Museum made me question myself: am I guilty for what happened?
I at first thought, “Well, not really, right? I'm not a descendant of the American white folk, so….” Then I thought of it more and took it back. I thought that even though I was not American-born, it still affected me because of my privileges and the opportunities I had because of where I came from and the color of my skin. Everything at the museum shocked me because it gave me a new point of view on black history, the modern world we live in, and its problems that you don't hear about every day, specifically mass-incarceration.
Incarceration means being confined in a jail or prison. In this case, African-Americans are incarcerated just because of the color of their skin or a simple misjudgment. A simple misjudgment in the 1950s, such as flirting with a married white lady, could get a black person killed. This occurred with the case of Emmett Till. Today, African Americans have more rights, and interracial relationships are no longer met with violence. However, as the Legacy Museum illustrated, racism is around in other ways. Modern racism means judging people because of the color of their skin, like assuming that because someone is African American, they will do bad things. For example, if a white person gets pulled over and reaches for something, the police officer might assume that they are just grabbing their license; but if a black person gets pulled over and reaches for something, some officers might assume that they are reaching for a weapon, like in the book, The Hate U Give (Thomas, 2017) and end up being shot. This is modern-day racism.
One thing I learned from the Legacy Museum is that today, one in three black baby boys is expected to go to jail in his lifetime. The thing about incarceration for young children is that if they are sentenced to jail for a long period of their life, they don't have education or money when they are released. Now, this is the problem: they can't get a job because they aren't educated enough and their moral background is doubted if they’re raised in jail. It also personally impacts their character. Wrongful imprisonment can also lead to anger issues, which negatively impacts a person both mentally and emotionally. Imagine that you were sentenced for life in jail or even for 30 years. That's a long time, and I'm going to be completely honest with you: that most certainly would piss me off.
The Legacy Museum showed us the stories of people who were innocent and sent to jail for half their life, assumed to have done something bad because of the color of their skin. I believe if people didn't teach their kids to assume, then they would look at everyone the same, equally; the pigmentation of one’s skin would become as trivial as someone’s hair being blond or black. I believe that racism is taught. You’re not born with it; you learn it first at home or at school, naturally. You learn about white people ruling and enslaving black people, affecting how a child may look at black skin colored person. When white children learn about this history, they might feel bad and think how terrible and wrong this was, but when they look at an African American, they might see them as a different person because of how they were treated; they might be prejudice against them for the color of their skin, and not just as a regular old person.
We should all treat each other like regular humans, without worrying about skin color. We aren’t black people or white people; WE are PEOPLE. We just have different colored skin, and what's wrong with that? Nothing. That's what I thought.
Maybe by reading this, you have taken this into thought, and realize that this is a modern life problem, not a past problem. I really hope you take this to heart and feel for others, because I did, and took into my heart that the bad things in our world can and should be fixed, and we must fix them, together. United.
I at first thought, “Well, not really, right? I'm not a descendant of the American white folk, so….” Then I thought of it more and took it back. I thought that even though I was not American-born, it still affected me because of my privileges and the opportunities I had because of where I came from and the color of my skin. Everything at the museum shocked me because it gave me a new point of view on black history, the modern world we live in, and its problems that you don't hear about every day, specifically mass-incarceration.
Incarceration means being confined in a jail or prison. In this case, African-Americans are incarcerated just because of the color of their skin or a simple misjudgment. A simple misjudgment in the 1950s, such as flirting with a married white lady, could get a black person killed. This occurred with the case of Emmett Till. Today, African Americans have more rights, and interracial relationships are no longer met with violence. However, as the Legacy Museum illustrated, racism is around in other ways. Modern racism means judging people because of the color of their skin, like assuming that because someone is African American, they will do bad things. For example, if a white person gets pulled over and reaches for something, the police officer might assume that they are just grabbing their license; but if a black person gets pulled over and reaches for something, some officers might assume that they are reaching for a weapon, like in the book, The Hate U Give (Thomas, 2017) and end up being shot. This is modern-day racism.
One thing I learned from the Legacy Museum is that today, one in three black baby boys is expected to go to jail in his lifetime. The thing about incarceration for young children is that if they are sentenced to jail for a long period of their life, they don't have education or money when they are released. Now, this is the problem: they can't get a job because they aren't educated enough and their moral background is doubted if they’re raised in jail. It also personally impacts their character. Wrongful imprisonment can also lead to anger issues, which negatively impacts a person both mentally and emotionally. Imagine that you were sentenced for life in jail or even for 30 years. That's a long time, and I'm going to be completely honest with you: that most certainly would piss me off.
The Legacy Museum showed us the stories of people who were innocent and sent to jail for half their life, assumed to have done something bad because of the color of their skin. I believe if people didn't teach their kids to assume, then they would look at everyone the same, equally; the pigmentation of one’s skin would become as trivial as someone’s hair being blond or black. I believe that racism is taught. You’re not born with it; you learn it first at home or at school, naturally. You learn about white people ruling and enslaving black people, affecting how a child may look at black skin colored person. When white children learn about this history, they might feel bad and think how terrible and wrong this was, but when they look at an African American, they might see them as a different person because of how they were treated; they might be prejudice against them for the color of their skin, and not just as a regular old person.
We should all treat each other like regular humans, without worrying about skin color. We aren’t black people or white people; WE are PEOPLE. We just have different colored skin, and what's wrong with that? Nothing. That's what I thought.
Maybe by reading this, you have taken this into thought, and realize that this is a modern life problem, not a past problem. I really hope you take this to heart and feel for others, because I did, and took into my heart that the bad things in our world can and should be fixed, and we must fix them, together. United.