In 2008 I sat in my Grandmother’s living room and watched tears fall down her face as Barack Obama was elected President of the United Sates. The same United States she grew up in during the heat of Jim Crow laws. The same United States where she witnessed a White man spit on her sister. She drank from those infamous fountains that said “Colored Only”. She mourned after a hero was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee for supporting everything she believed in. Never in a million years did she expect to see a Black (half Black at least) president. When I saw those tears of joy that Tuesday in November it gave me so much hope, the exact hope Obama talked about through his whole campaign. It confirmed what I thought I already knew. We had finally found the light and we’re united as one instead of separated by color.

I was 13 years old. Boy, was I wrong.

After George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin for looking “suspicious” my grandmother had a talk with my brother, which was probably similar to talks little Black boys faced during her time after Emmett Till was killed in 1955. She told him not to walk around late at night. She told him to pull his pants up and speak clearly and politely. She told him not to wear a staple item in his wardrobe, a hoodie. I can guarantee you no White grandmother has had that conversation with her White grandson because she was afraid of him being killed. After Jordan Davis it was the same talk and again a few weeks ago after Mike Brown. That’s when I realized very little had changed and I saw all the progress we’ve made take a few steps back. Blacks and Whites are still living inherently different lives and I have been unconsciously living through it.

I am now aware. I am now present. I have become too accustomed to young Black men being killed while unarmed. Seemingly, the only crime is the color of their skin. Their faces appear on too many TV screens only to be criticized for everything they apparently did wrong and they are unable to defend themselves because they are no longer here. Trayvon was suspended from school, Oscar Grant spent time in jail and Mike Brown smoked weed. So, all of a sudden their deaths make sense because they weren’t perfect? What if my brother was Trayvon, Oscar, Jordan or Mike? Would that have been a better choice? A tall light-skinned, private school educated, 18 year old boy who wore TOMS and associated with majority rich, White kids. Would the media then have praised him as a gentle, brilliant, creative kid as they do White mass murderers? No. Some facts would arise to justify that he was just another hopeless, dangerous Black boy who had it coming upon him even though he DID NOT have a weapon. Human lives are lost and as a nation we are blaming those individuals for their own death.

I often feel the hope I once had fading. I feel my grandmother’s tears of joy having little significance now as if we’re stuck in a timeless era. She’s watching her childhood all over agian. Regardless of those who fail to believe it, racism is still a problem in our country. It’s still a problem because people won’t talk about it and instead choose to hand out suggestions as how we can disguise our blackness. It’s either the clothes we wear or how to speak or the way we walk or the music we listen to. All that can supposedly change how America views the Black individual. Even the Black individual is starting to believe it. Look back at the conversation between my grandmother and brother. Let me tell you, that’s not going to do it. No one should have to tell my Black best friends how to act to avoid being shot because they are already the most insightful, eloquent, creative individuals I know. And no one should have to tell my brother what to wear to avoid being shot because they killed Martin in a suit in 1968 and Trayvon in hoodie in 2012. It’s still going to happen. So, it’s not the African-American that needs to change for the race conversation to be blown out the window. We’re talking about it. We live it. It’s America that needs to change, it’s America that needs to speak up and I still have hope that it can happen. Just like President Obama said that same night in 2008, “that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes We Can.”

Mike Brown, rest in endless power. Look what you’ve sparked. For you, yes we will.