I am writing this with very raw emotions and maybe this isn't a good idea but so be it. Anyone who knows me can describe me as the outspoken girl who always has something to say about racial injustice and sexism. I get ridiculed sometimes by people my age who think I'm too intense and I know that. If I'm too intense it's because I'm passionate. To quote Leslie Knope here: "If I seem too passionate it's because I care."
I have experienced my fair share of racism by now I'm used to it but yes, it does still hurt hearing racial slurs. People think that the little jokes they make are minor and will blow over but I promise you that on the other end of the spectrum, those jokes stay with you for the rest of your life. I remember attending summer camp when I was nine and having one of the counselors laugh at me because I was having a hard time asking her a question because I barely spoke English. I remember my freshman year of high school when someone from the church I used to attend wrote me a fake referral for "being an illegal immigrant". I also remember standing in a Starbucks parking lot with my old friends after a church service and having the same person ridicule me in front of everyone while asking what my social security number was and having everyone present laugh at me. I remember sitting in math class last year and having another boy ask me in front of everyone if I was a good swimmer and when I said yes, he proceeded to ask me how I swam here. This same boy would ask me almost everyday how I crossed the border and how it was living in the Amazon. Today I had a boy tell me that if I was an illegal immigrant then "I needed to go back to my own fucking country" in the back of the class while everyone laughed.
I'm telling you this because of the recent events that have happened. I was awake in the middle of the night crying when I learned about what happened to Mike Brown. I'm tired of seeing innocent lives being taken simply for the color of their skin or for the religion that they follow. Just this week, three Muslim students were killed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina by a middle aged white man and no one seems to care. Imagine if the roles were reversed and how the media would react. In the past two days, this was not the main headline and no one wants to admit that this was a hate crime. I have seen too many killings and violence being enforced on the side of those being oppressed and I'm scared.
I'm scared because people of my race are also among those who are targeted. The Huffington Post has stated that the murder rate for Hispanics/Latinos is twice the murder rates for whites. I am proud of my heritage and where I come from. Maybe it's because I'm such an advocate against racism that I don't understand why it happens in the first place. I'm genuinely scared every time I go out and see someone with a confederate flag hanging from their truck because the odds are that the person whose flag that belongs to doesn't agree with me being here. My family came here from Brazil because my parents grew up in the poorest part of my city and they knew that the same would follow for me if we stayed there. Next time you make a racial remark remember that the statement you're making becomes an everyday part of that person. If you hear these remarks, remember not to be a bystander. Those are the worst kinds of people.
-Laís
adventuring & mostly rambling.
