The stigmatism of Ferguson Missouri shows how racism still lives and is real. A white cop kills an unarmed African American and doesn’t get indicted. A lot of folks still have a racist attitude or don’t mind racism as we saw by the election of our current president. This goes back to the civil rights
movement and it’s impression on a lot of older folks of color. The link to the first website expressed how in the classrooms we must start teaching kids about the activist such as Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X,. This reminds me of when I asked my step dad what his grandmother’s view was on the civil rights leaders, he replied clearly stating that they believed they were troublemakers. He states that this was the tone or belief of most elderly or older blacks during the civil rights movement. A lot of the black community just wanted to live their lives in peace which couldn’t be accomplished with the uproar started by these activist. This goes with my chinese grandmother as well. She saw the news back then and interpreted it as the African Americans are trouble makers. The media then until now shows majority of black crime, which has shaped the ideology most older people have of black people. So racism is still well alive, it has just transcended into less radical expressions and more institutionally shown. Look at our prison systems. Look at the white house staff. Look at the war on drugs which was just a plot to criminalize black folks and throw them in jail. Both of the links to the websites brought awareness to how people have been influencing and spreading the Black Lives Matter movement, but it mainly talks about educating the young. I understand we must target the young and remind them of historic events which shaped today’s civil rights, but the young are easier to convince. The people we need on board is the older generations, they have money, they have influence over their families, and they still have a vote. The young people we educate who become activist put pressures on the older generation to help make change, but they do that for only the older people in power, like the politicians who write policy. The people who need to be targeted are the old people stuck in there old ways. The faster we get folks to set aside racist thoughts, the faster racism will end.
From my life as a second generation Asian American I’ve seen how the young aren’t the ones who are afraid and build barriers between races. In kindergarten they showed me that the young embrace others differences. In high school I was shown how the educational system leaves my people history in the dark and don’t talk about their struggle in the states as they do with other immigrant races. And
through my family experiences I’ve seen how black people are still treated differently even though we live in the 21st century. Through this I’ve seen that the Black Live matter movement has brought more attention in educating the youth on the past civil rights movements and how we can use that knowledge to help us today, I believe we must also be targeting the elderly population and educating them as well.