Last night, as I was scrolling through my twitter feed, I saw a tweet that mentioned the vandalization of a memorial dedicated to Emmett Hill. A memorial sign, describing and marking the place where Till’s body was found, was riddled with bullets. For those of you who do not know about this very famous murder, Emmett Hill was a 14-year-old African-American who was kidnapped, mutilated and shot by two white men because he had allegedly flirted with one of the mens’ wives.
Emmett Till’s murder placed a national spotlight on racism and civil rights issues that could not be ignored by any community. As a person who was raised to be kind and compassionate to others, I was brought to the tears by the (common) reality that someone believed a person deserved to die based solely on their race. They might not have killed Emmett Till, but they absolutely endorsed it with their actions., I have some questions that I have for the people who placed so much negative energy into desecrating a memorial for a child. While I know I will never get answers to these questions from those responsible, I think they still need to be asked.
- When did you decide that a murder of a 14-year-old, regardless of race, is justifiable?
- Having asked that question, what makes you think that because someone is of a different race, they deserve or deserved to die?
- When did you decide to stop seeing people as three-dimensional, conscious individuals and start seeing them as realizations of your own perverted ideas of culture and what it means to be of a certain race?
- At what moment did you start hating people of different backgrounds for not taking your blatant racism lying down?
- Are you really struggling in your day-to-day life because of someone else or because of your own reckless decisions (ex. DESECRATING A MEMORIAL)?
- Did desecrating a memorial do anything to subdue the rage that obviously is buried deep in your psyche?
- Do you consider yourself to be a smart, self-aware individual?
- Do you love yourself?
The person or people who committed this blatant act of intolerance are not capable of seeing themselves as one of seven billion people. They have not realized that they are not, in fact, standing in the center of the universe. Whoever did this obviously cannot take responsibility for their probably awful personality traits or the disgusting behavior that they exhibit on a regular basis. Someone who would intentionally damage a memorial for a 14-year-old cannot possibly have high self-esteem. They do not love themselves. They hate themselves. They hate watching others succeed, and rather than bettering themselves to achieve what they want out of life, they would rather tear other people down, especially based on their race. They are uncomfortable with the idea of equality because they believe their privilege is threatened. Well, they better get comfortable, because the cultural melting pot that is the United States is only going to continue to get stirred and people of all different races and backgrounds are always going to live here and they deserve the right to live the happiest life they can, regardless of the unintelligent views of a racist.
