Welcome back readers,
This week in our CAP Stream, we had a joint lecture with all of our professors and we talked about the Black Lives Matter movement, and decided to address it from the sociological, geographic, political, and literary perspectives. This exercise was quite challenging, and even though I enjoyed it, I would like to describe my personal perspective of the movement in the following post.
When I think about the Black Lives Matter movement, I think about the kids; the kids who feel entitled to rule the world, to own it, to be be whatever they want to be because the sky is the limit. Mostly, however, I think about myself when I was a kid and how I always took for granted that I was entitled to have the world, to own it, that the color of my skin did not make me any different, that I had as many opportunities as the next guy. Today I think about my mentality as a kid growing up in Bolivia and I want to think that every kid thinks the same way that I did. Not once did I think about being treated differently, about limiting my chances because I was a woman, a Latino woman at that; not once did I think that the way people thought about me and saw me as a part of society was any different than the perception that they would have of a white person.
Furthermore, I did not grow up with fear, I did not grow up with the statistics against me, or shaped by the stereotypes that the world placed on people like me. That is why coming to Canada opened my eyes, because the knowledge that I acquire everyday in class tells me that the university is preparing me for the outside world, that my professors are telling me that I can do it, and that my parents know that I’ll succeed. But what can I do when society is bidding against me? What should I make about what people tell me when the odds are against me? How should I deal with the fact that where I’m from dictates my future?
I ask myself these questions now, at 18 years of age, with a fair knowledge of general culture and basic common sense. But, what about the kids wondering about this? What happens to the kids that have been scrutinized and discriminated since the day they were born? What goes through their minds when from the age of 5 years old they see that people with their same skin color and similar backgrounds are being shot in the streets without a reasonable explanation? These are the kids that the Black Lives Matter movement is standing for; they are vouching for a better tomorrow for the kids whose futures are limited by a society who still does not see them as equals. Ultimately, I think that this is one of the most important goals of the movement; because if kids can’t dream, if they’re not told that they have just the same opportunities as everyone else, if they don’t believe that they are entitled to rule the world, then what can they hope and aspire for in life?
Thank you for reading, guys!
-Mariana
