I grew up hearing great things about the United States: the land of the brave, the land of the free, the land where you have freedom to be whoever you want, the land of opportunities where you can accomplish anything and what not. How great is the country that lets you be whatever you want? How great is the country which accepts and respects everyone? I always wished I grew up here. I wished I was American. I wished I was free.
When I first learned about "Black Lives Matter" movement three years ago, I thought it was unnecessary. I assumed that it was putting forward an idea that Black lives matter more than any other lives. I was new to America and thus new to all the oppression, racial profiling and systemic violence here. I did not know that the land I thought accepted everyone regardless of religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation or any other "categories:" actually picked and chose and is very selective in both its humanity and justice. I was very wrong about Black Lives Matter and wrong about life in America.
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If you are not a cis-gendered, heterosexual, white man in America, it does not take long for you to realize that the justice system here gives in to any and every form of oppression: racism, sexism, trans-phobia, homophobia, Islamophobia and every other -isms and phobias. A girl gets drugged and raped- gets stripped of her autonomy - gets scarred for life- but the leniency is shown to the rapist whose "well being" matters to the judge more than the girl's dignity. A white, privileged, Stanford-rapist is given as less punishment as possible to save his future but a little black kid carrying a toy gun is handed death. These are not even unusual cases anymore. How is this okay?
When a homophobic, hate-filled American goes and shoots innocent people in a bar in Orlando, the blame is put on billions of people practicing the same faith as him and the religion itself. What about the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills that are introduced each year? What about the decision of the states to ban trans people from the bathroom they identify with just few months ago that people enthusiastically shared on their Facebook page? How do you expect the shootings like these to not happen when the states themselves are actively participating in criminalizing people who do not deserve to be criminalized? Why wear a blindfold to that? Why is it that every time a white man goes and shoots innocent, little kids, he is judged in isolation, but crime committed by people of color is seen as a representation of their whole race or religion?
Does the great U.S. need oppression to function? The people of color, especially black people, have been victim of racial-profiling for so long. Now that they are raising their voice against this system, America has already started racial-profiling Muslims. Where does this need to oppress people come from? Why? The same people who guiltlessly shared homophobic, trans-phobic posts on the social media and perpetuated hate went on to "pray" for the victims and curse Islam for their hate.What about your own hate and ideology? It does not even matter, but ISIS will obviously claim the credit for the shooting if you spend hours giving them credit online. Why do you see hate everybody's hate but not your own?
The truth is simple: to people who fuel this system of oppression, violence and bigotry, your hobby of owning guns that you probably have never/and will never use for "protection" that you claim to, matters more to you than the lives of innocent people . You will go as far as building walls, deporting millions, banning an entire faith, and criminalizing sexuality, but will do nothing to give up your hobby that took more than 5000 lives in 2016 alone . Your "religious freedom" and "freedom of speech" to spit out hate about people you know nothing about/ or have never tried to learn about matters to you more than human lives. Your opinions, your hobbies, your existence matters to you more than anything else and you don't care whether others live or die. So, hiding the very prominent injustices under the cloak of beautifully written, hypothetical "All Lives Matter" does not change what the reality is. And the reality is "all lives don't matter" here and a lot of work needs to be done to change that.
I love America. America has given me a lot-- like the opportunity to rant like this for a digital newspaper. I want to see it grow. I want to see it prosper. And I know it is never happening unless we accept our own weaknesses and flaws, and work towards getting rid of the inequalities and the system that is mutually destructive for all the Americans and non-Americans alike.
