November 8, 2016

Dear Future President of the United States,

I’m an outsider because of my skin tone. I feel like I’m always having to change something- As if I am not good enough as I already am. The people who I call my friends are the ones who make me question who I am and make me believe that it’s bad to be a black person, especially one who is not “light skinned.” We are all still the same, just different colors: a white rose is still a rose just one of a different color. When you experience the fact that race has a huge impact on your life, and that you aren’t the “good” race, it’s hard to get away from that; then you hate talking about anything involving black people because they get made fun off so easily and that then goes toward you, it causes you to feel weak, petty, and so small you feel as if you are a hurt animal. People see you but choose not to help you get on your feet, no instead they would rather make it worse.

It takes a lot of courage to stand up to that kind of abuse, finding courage is hard in this world because everything that you do or say could get you either killed or hurt. It’s hard to be a black man and be proud because you get easily made fun of and abused for your skin tone, and also because we put ourselves in those situations: instead of being the opposite of what other races say we are, we tend to go along with the trend of what a black person should be. But what can I do? I’m just a kid no one will listen to or even stop to hear what I have to say. Hatred is not born in us, it’s created by us, and we let it run us, we let it seep into us and change who we are. It makes us hate who we are, and hate everything about ourselves and we then use that anger to harm ourselves and others, instead of using to make a difference to the world.

So this is my message to the next president of the United States of America: Please try your best to end this segregation and this horrible white dominion, even though you are white yourself. Every day that you are in office and someone else gets hurt or killed, know this needs to change. If it doesn’t, we face a world filled with racial profiling, oppression, and segregation.

People should be able to walk around without getting inspected for drugs, weapons, etc. or even worse, shot by law enforcement no matter their race, ethnicity, or religion. This is what we call "Racial Profiling." Racial Profiling is discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin, according to Racial Profiling: Definition, by www. Aclu.org. A total number of 1136 people have been killed by police since 2014. 301 of that number have been African-Americans who were unarmed citizens, just going on their daily routine. It’s not the 1950s anymore African-Americans shouldn’t be scared to leave the house in fear of being questioned or killed by a police. I myself have been questioned by an officer, and i was just going to my college class, that was my first year of high school. Then after the unarmed person is dead the officers come up with an excuse saying, “i was fearing for my life” or “i thought i saw a weapon”. And they get away with doing this, not one of the police officers has been sent to jail or prison for first degree murder. And when we let them get away with this then it shows that other officers can do that, which they have and like I said before, have gotten away with it.

I hope that you will understand the true responsibility and meaning of being a leader instead of proving yourself to people that you are something, or to use this job for the power it gives. While some people may say that it is better to have whites and blacks separate it keeps them with themselves and they will think the same because of the fact that they are the same race, but i say that it’s better to merge the groups together because when we do that, we will have different ideas that will benefit us and we then will not have prejudice and hatred for one another, instead we will have peace and equality but, hurting each other won’t fix the situation as you have clearly seen. What is the one most powerful object in the world? The human brain, and if just an idea can cause a whole revolution just from one person, wouldn’t it be logical to have multiple brains working together in harmony. Police brutality and segregation needs to end, before it becomes an unbeatable force. It still exist, look at the way Donald Trump describes Mexicans and African-Americans, that’s not how a normal person would describe them.

I humbly thank you for reading my letter that I have composed for you.

Sincerely,

Izaiah M.