The Good Parts Are Where we Find Hope

By Anonymous / Winter 2021

Dear 10-Year-Old Me,

By now you will have learned about some of the racism that occurred in America’s history. About slavery, segregation, Japanese internment camps, and much more. You probably think that racism is a thing of the past. After all, you grew up in a very liberal bubble and attended schools that had students coming from diverse backgrounds. You are still young and so innocently unaware of how cruel people can be. However, as you grow older you’ll start to learn just how deep racism runs in this nation.

In sixth grade, you will watch a documentary about Emmitt Till. You will see a photo of his beaten face and feel your throat tighten. You will wonder how it is possible for grown men to have such a hatred towards a young boy. In eighth grade, you will read short stories and novels written by people in minority groups. Some of these stories taking place in San Francisco Chinatown or on Native American reservations. These stories are going to show you the different yet similar ways the American people and government were racists towards different groups of people. Yet still, racism will feel small and something that doesn’t occur that often anymore.

In your freshman year of high school, you’ll see the nation protest the death of Michael Brown. It will start to dawn upon you that racism still thrives in America and it is more complicated than you thought. The effects of racism were weaved into systems built by the government, such as police brutality. Even though you knew racism still existed it felt like it was far away from your safe liberal bubble.

Then in junior year of high school that bubble will pop. It will come to light that boys in your grade, boys that you have known since middle school, had a racist Instagram account. The account will mostly consist of posts targeted towards African American girls in your school. You will see classmates who were victims crying in the halls and bathrooms. One of the girls will show you a screenshot of her being compared to an ape. Students will conduct protests while the school administrators struggle on how to best discipline the perpetrators and how to help the student body move forward. Your whole grade will have to do group therapy for half the day, school assemblies will be held, and the school will attempt to have restorative justice between the victims and perpetrators. The perpetrators will either be suspended or expelled and some of the victims will transfer schools as they no longer felt safe. During this time you will feel upset, frustrated, and tired. You will wonder how these boys could say such racist and hateful things, especially since they were “close friends” with most of the girls that they targeted.

As you continue to grow up you will see more protests advocating for black lives and you will learn about intersectionality. You will become aware of systemic racism and how racism has embedded its way into many systems in America. Those systems that are supposed to help the American people are in fact hurting and holding back many minorities.

Sometimes I find myself wishing that I was still you. Blissfully naive and oblivious to hideous ways that the country operated. That racism could be easily solved with a simple sorry and that people just had to work on being kind and respectful towards one another. Instead that is not enough as racism in this nation is more complex than that. One has to work on being anti-racist and actively try to unlearn some of the biases they may have. Even if everyone stopped being racist and got rid of all their racial biases, there is still the matter of systemic racism. Some of these systems have to be torn down and built anew again.

Rebuilding systems and creating new laws will seem daunting. However, you can find inspiration and motivation from looking at people in the past. It took time and lots of hard work, but people were able to abolish slavery and end segregation. The Chinese Exclusion Act eventually came to an end and survivors of Japanese internment camps were paid reparations.

So to 10-Year-Old Me, as you continue to grow and learn more about the dark past in American history, don’t forget to also look at the good parts. It is in the good parts of history where you will find hope and remember why we must continue fighting for the equality that our ancestors longed for.

Sincerely,