Black What Out?!

What is the Blackout Project?

It feels like the amount of racism is becoming more and more apparent as time goes by. Racism has been alive longer than most of us have existed, many of our ancestors have been victims, witness, or has known someone affected by racism. I’m more than sad to say that not much has changed, and our ancestors suffering didn’t replace the suffering many black people are enduring in present day. For those who aren’t aware of what I’m talking about or why, let me tell you.

All the way back in 1955, 14 year old Emmett Till was killed for harmlessly flirting with a white woman at a grocery store. Let me emphasize that 14 year old Emmett Till was unarmed when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered, to the point where his body was almost unrecognizable for simply “flirting”, His murder was never convicted or punished due to an all white jury.

On February 26^th, 2012 in Sanford Florida, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by 28-year-old George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch who assumed he was up to no good, simply because he was a young black man wearing a hoodie. Martin was walking home from a convenience store, unarmed and holding a pack of candy. Martin, the young man killed over his appearance, was the same person who pulled his father out a burning kitchen at the young age of 9 and had plans of attending college to make something out of him self.

On July 17^th, 2014 43-year-old Eric Garner was murdered by NYPD who choked him to death, because they were under the suspicion he was selling loose cigarettes. While being strangled, Garner yelled out to police that he couldn’t breath eleven times while laying facedown on the sidewalk. Garner was also unarmed.

In Ferguson Missouri, on August 9^th, 2014 18-year-old Michael Brown robbed a convenient store was shot and killed by a police officer. Brown was also unarmed. Without justifying his wrongs, let me ask: what happened to the training police officers have to go through to get the badge they carry? The last time I checked, pulling out a gun to kill someone is a last resort that an officer is supposed to use when his or her life is at risk. How can your life be at risk when the man you shot had no weapon to harm you with?

On March 9^th 2015, 27-year-old Anthony Hill, a naked, unarmed black man, suffering from a mental illness was shot and killed by an officer even though he wasn’t showing any acts of violence. So instead of getting the help he needed, he was killed. I mean it’s not like officers have stun guns, pepper spray, and not to mention two working arms to defend themselves from naked and unarmed men that was doing nothing but crawling around naked. That level of lack of compassion isn’t even a cop issue… that’s a serious question of humanity. Hill, despite his mental illness was a musician, and air force veteran.

The worst part is, this is only the bare minimum of heartbreaking cases. This List goes on and unfortunately it probably will multiply… but this is exactly why it’s important to recognize the beauty diversity brings to this world. Black people have proven themselves to be a race just as educated, beautiful and successful as others. Black women are proven to be the most educated group in the United States according to the National Center of Education Statistics in 2014. Black women were queens in our history books and the queens of young black men in our modern day lives. Remember that without men, there would be no women, and without women there will be no men. This goes for every race and culture, not just black. That is why every human life is precious… BLACK LIVES MATTER TOO.

-Shannon Liverpool