From “US: The Resurrection of American Terror” by Rev. Kenneth W. Wheeler
White racism created economic, social, and political systems that made for poor housing, inadequate health care, poor schools, and lack of life-sustaining jobs in Black communities all across this nation, a nation that continues to be hostile to Black people and to Black bodies.
I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I am a Black man who lives with this weight of living in a nation where my Black life has never mattered and where it may never matter. I am an American who keeps watching our young Black males being killed by white police officers without any provocation. I am angry that this keeps happening.
I am angry because there are white people in this nation who are still in denial about the presence, power, and potency of white supremacy. I am angry because this denial means they will never get who we are as Black people. They will never get our fight for justice and equality because they will always see people who look like me as a problem. And mostly, I am angry because white supremacy keeps white people from seeing us as human beings and from treating us as human beings in the same way that white people are seen and treated as human beings.