Borderline

Deziyinera Wester

Mrs.Morris

ENG 111-SO1

10 October 2016

Borderline

        Black lives matter. All lives matter. Pink lives matter. Blue lives matter. All of these movements began at one period in time, a period I myself didn’t live through; but I have family members that did. Seeing the news nowadays really makes me think, “Are we moving forward or going backwards?” To me it’s a little bit of both, were neither going forward or moving backwards. We’re kinda staying in the middle. My experiences and my older family members’ experiences are completely different but as a whole my family knows what its like to grow up black.

“It was understood. We knew where to be and who not to be around and at what time.” Could other people imagine growing up understanding that their race and their people were deemed inferior to another? I couldn’t and it happened to my own people. My grandmother and other older family members grew up in a time where segregation and racism were at its peak. Black people were getting beaten up, humiliated and, worst of all, killed just for being black. Let a black man look at a white woman the wrong way. He would be killed on the spot. That’s the kind of environment they grew up in. My grandmother didn’t talk much about because she said it brought back bad memories and honestly I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t want to relive one of the darker times in black history especially if I lived through it.

Jump forward a good sixty plus years. What has really changed are the laws regarding civil rights. I look back now at how racial issues have changed and how many laws have been passed since then and I just shake my head. To my grandma these issues have gotten better which, if I was her, I would think so too, but with the amount of killings going on and how many innocent lives are being taken almost every single day, I feel they’ve only gotten worse.

As someone who grew up exposed to twenty first century racism I can say the treatment is different. If you look at me you’ll see someone who’s not light enough to pass but not dark enough to be black. I’m what is considered borderline or at least that’s what my sister calls it. Growing up I would get into arguments with other kids of my race and even some white kids and they would always say I was not black.