One of my mentors sent me the dash cam video footage of what happened to Sandra Bland prior to her death. This video shows how people of color are still being oppressed in America and this country is using fear to keep people that look like me in line. From 2000-2015, 5600 people of color have been killed by the police. The police are not just killing black men; they are killing kids, women and this problem is really starting to get out of hand. How is it that a women gets pulled over for a lane violation, and ends up getting pulled out of her car, slammed on her head and dying in police custody? I'm tired of this county, I'm tired of the police, and I'm tired of the millions of people that just sit back and watch this type of stuff happen. If this country cares about the well being of people of color, then they would do something about the police. The problems that people of color are dealing with include the same problems that were dealt with during Jim Crow when the KKK were hanging us in the streets. You see I have love in my heart for all people but I will never forget what this country and the people in it did to us during slavery, Jim Crow and now. This county has the highest incarceration numbers in the world. Statistics will show that America is not consistent on giving second chances but we are still in the same country that hung people of color and stood over their bodies while we burned in the sun like Billie Holiday's strange fruit. We are still that same country that made post cards and stamps of people of color being murdered or humiliated. We are the same country that took away the rights of my people and forced us to live in a land where the people that inhabited that land were trained to hate us. This is the same country that took away our right to vote. This country has did so many terrible things to people of color that we should never forgive this county but we have, and look how we are repaid.

This American Dream wasn't intended to benefit people of color. First, it was slavery, then it was Jim Crow, then this country allowed drugs and guns to be poured into our communities, the government created a bunch of laws that would lead to people of color, mainly, to be arrested and imprisoned for years. Now after all that this country has did to us they make it seem like the problems of poverty, oppression, racism, and violence were created by the people that are being oppressed. This country has had an hidden agenda to disenfranchise people of color since the moment we entered this country. The only way we are going to change this world is if we unify as a people. But before we can unify all nationalities, we have to be the example. People of color have to stop killing one another, hurting one another, we have to stop talking down to each other, we have to treat our women with more respect. We have to stop physically and mentally abusing our women and our children. We can't let the pain in our heart grow because eventually it will end up becoming our worse enemy. Love will set us free, and we have to show other nationalities that regardless of what people of color have been through, we will still stick together and we will still continue to push this country and this world forward, as we always have.

The Civil Rights movement showed the world how a group of people could come together to push charge forward. Now it's time that our generation makes this country and this world a better place. I send my condolences to Sandra Bland’s family and all the other families that lost family members to police violence. This wouldn't keep happening if we were United. This county is trying to put fear in your heart, stand up for what you know is right. I look at it like this it doesn't matter what your skin color is, you could be Caucasian, Mexican, Latino, Indian, Russian, African American, if you are just standing idle and doing nothing you are apart of the problem. If you can't see that institutionalized racism is a major problem and has become a disease in America, you are apart of the problem. If you feel like it's ok for a police officer to pull a women out her car, slam her on her head and then tell her that she brought those actions on herself your apart if the problem. If we continue to sit back and do nothing things will only get worse. Don't wait until it's your son that doesn't come home because they get killed by the police; don't wait until it's your mother, sister, cousin being killed by the police to want to do something. In 2005 a bill was passed by the United States stating that police officers were no longer to protect and serve, they are only suppose to enforce the law. Things are starting to look like the early 1900's. Wake up, shift your consciousness, connect with others and let's make this world better before the people in power destroy it.