Eboni Maxwell, 13 (Boston, MA) What My America Looks Like Eboni Maxwell, 13 My America looks like chaos, a burning flame that cannot be put out and continues to grow. My America is dull and bland; I wake up everyday and ask myself ¨Why are most people cruel and mean, racist and unapologetic… What made them this way?” I get ready for school and go to learn, but my mind is constantly running. Thoughts of what would happen if I wasn’t black: could or would I be able to put more of an end to racism? I try to focus but all I hear in my head are the sounds of gunshots, people screaming for their lives and crying babies scared by the loud bangs. As a black female in this world that we live in, I am too afraid to walk anywhere alone with the fear of being shot, kidnapped, or murdered, or worse. MY world is not at all pretty. Life isn’t what everyone makes it out to be.
racism
A Child’s View of the Death of George Floyd, by Amara, 9
A Child’s View of the Death of George Floyd Amara DeLong, 9 New Orleans, LA Last year, my four-year-old neighbor dressed up as a police officer for Halloween. He was very proud of his costume! Little did he know what was actually happening in the world. Two days ago, my family and I learned about the death of George Floyd. We watched the video, on CNN, of a police officer putting his knee on the forty-six-year-old man’s neck, even as he pleaded for the officer to get off. At school, we are taught to respect police officers. We are taught that they protect our community. We are also taught that racism ended with the civil rights movement. We learn about Harriet Tubman’s fight against slavery, and Rosa Parks’s and Martin Luther King’s fight against segregation. We learn about Ida B. Wells’s fight against lynching. Yet, we don’t learn about the racism present today. The evils that Ida B. Wells fought against are still happening. George Floyd was lynched, and he was lynched by police officers. These are the people who have a responsibility to protect communities, not destroy them. I want to grow up in a country with a greater sense of justice. I want a country that achieves the goals of our activists and real heroes. I hope that, one day, children in America can wear a police officer costume with actual pride.
