I was in the fifth grade when I was finally able to understand what people meant when they said America was the land of “freedom and equality.” Yet, now I’m grown, I’ve realized those comments about America were lies. I was in the fifth grade when I was finally able to understand what people meant when they said America was the land of “freedom and equality.” Yet, now I’m grown, I’ve realized those comments about America were lies.

America isn’t the land of “freedom and equality.” Right now America is the place you come to with the fear of being kicked back out. America is the place you come to if you want a white supremacist to say “you don’t belong here,” or “go back where you came from.” This is what America is really built on and it sickens me.

Aug. 12, 2017 – a day when Nazi supporters, white supremacists, and overall everyone who loathes people of color came out and protested because the statue of Robert E Lee was being taken down. What struck me the most was that Lee was a racist, his statue in some respects represented racism, so why did these people have to protest against its removal? If policemen were at the scene then how come these non people of color could protest with their guns and discriminatory language with no one stopping them, because “everything was under control.” Yes, people of color do at times get away with protesting, but they would never get away with protesting with weapons in the way that these people did. DeAndre Harris, an unarmed African American, was beaten by white supremacists in a parking garage because Harris and his friends were counter protesting. That’s not even the worst part; the beating happened right by the Charlottesville Police Department, yet there were no police at the scene.

Which brings me to my overall point, what’s the difference between protest involving mostly whites and those involving mostly people of color? Why could one group of people who support something that represents racism and superiority protest and not be charged, but when the script is flipped any other race would be handled with more authority. I’m not saying these people don’t have the right to protest, because according to the First Amendment they do. Yet, at what point does it stop becoming a protest and start becoming a wake-up call that our officers don’t treat every protest equally.

Our own president even said “the media has treated them (the protesters) unfairly.” I’m sorry, but the only people who have been treated unfairly are the Black Lives Matter protesters. One day after Charlottesville, citizens in Louisville stood up and had their own rally to show their condolences for those people of color who were not treated fairly, and guess who decided to show up? The police. They did not have guns or people that were going to crash into a bunch of others but instead they had the strongest weapon of all, their voice. Even then police found the need to stop them, why? If we have the freedom to protest then we should treat every protest equally.