During this week of the Fourth of July, when we celebrate “Freedom,” a recent glance at headlines reveals to me how lacking freedom is in this country if you are a person of color. File this under the tragic, reoccurring category of “[Insert-Daily-Mundane-Activity-Here-White-People-of-Privilege-Utterly-Take-for-Granted] While Black.” If you are not familiar with it already, this is an exercise wherein we add the tagline “while black” to simple activities white people rarely are harassed, attacked, or imprisoned for. But if you are black, it’s a completely different story.
It is worth noting that the president responded with a thinly veiled threat of violence to the Congresswoman Maxine Waters. I don't know what the legal repercussions are against making threats of violence against members of congress are and if they are as serious as making public threats of violence against POTUS. These days, it's anyone's guess. But I commend Congresswoman Waters for her courage.
Speaking-as-Member-of-Congress while black: https://www.theroot.com/unbossed-and-unbowed-maxine-waters-tells-maga-harasser-1827268127
Walking-Down-the-Road while black: 21-year-old black woman called N*****, run over by truck and dragged by white man in Virginia. https://www.theroot.com/virginia-family-calls-for-hate-crime-investigation-afte-1826980108
Running-a-Business while black: https://www.theroot.com/black-owned-indiana-gaming-lounge-targeted-with-hate-no-1827258195
Going-to-School-and-even-being-valedictorian while Black: https://www.theroot.com/toronto-principal-transferred-after-being-accused-of-ra-1827258632
Owning-a-Car while black: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/police-attacked-me-for-stealing-a-car-it-was-my-own/2018/06/29/86829292-7658-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html?utm_term=.1b07c474f3ad
Mowing-Lawns-as-a-Twelve-Year-Old while black: https://www.theroot.com/some-miserable-troll-called-the-cops-on-a-12-year-old-e-1827244768
Selling-Bottles-of-Water-as-an-eight-year-old while black: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/letterstoeditor/article/Editorial-Permit-Patty-is-the-latest-in-an-13038622.php
Swimming-in-hotel-pool while black: https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/watch-white-man-tells-black-family-shower-entering-hotel-pool-hell-drain-afterwards/
Using-AirBnB while black: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/10/us/airbnb-black-rialto-california-trnd/index.html
Come on white people. Do better. Be better.