Our communities are plagued by death. Mothers and fathers are scared to send their children out because of the fear that they might be killed by doing something as simple as walking home or to a friend's house. 2016 has caused a lot of pain in the hearts of friends and families of the black community. Lives have been lost and in most cases no full justice is actually served. All lives will not matter until black lives matter, too. 

When you are scared or need help in an emergency, who do you call? The local police department is what most people would say, but what do you do if the police could care less about your life and judge you by your skin color, then who would call? That is a question most people have no answer to. We are fighting for equality and justice. We want to be able to walk down the streets and go about our day stress free. Lives have been taken for the simplest things: books, CDs, cigars, car trouble, and for things you would think you would be safe. These are real life examples of reasons people lives have been taken within the past two years. People mistake this movement as a violent movement. It is meant to cause awareness but people sometimes portray it as a way to start problems, creating fear for everyone involved. 

We want justice. We want these murderers in jail. In most of these cases the people are not punished at all. Cops have been given so many chances this year. The system has not given us any justice; they get leave with pay and get to enjoy their lives while we grieve in pain.  Recently a Tulsa police officer shot and killed a man, and she was let off on bond. Mostly every case is ignored, and even when it is 'handled' things like that happen.  My point is, black lives do matter, meaning all lives matter, but until black lives are equally treated we will continue to stand up for our people. Justice is all we want.