By Nicole Black

Does the name Trayvon Martin sound familiar to you? Or Tamir Rice? Maybe even Emmett Till. Kids who were all around my age who were unlawfully killed for the color of their skin. Trayvon was murdered in 2012 for walking home alone at night. Tamir Rice was murdered in 2014 while playing with airsoft toy guns in his neighborhood. Emmett Till? Killed in 1955 for the crime of being black in America. These murders taught me that even in my adolescence, I was still seen as a criminal, a thug. Knowing that Tamir Rice would have perhaps graduated alongside me in the year of 2021 breaks my heart. When will it stop, I ask. Our ancestors chanted “we shall overcome someday” but when is that day? 187 years later and my skin color still separates me from my white peers. 187 years later and we are still in the streets, pleading and begging for our lives to be held at the same value as our peers.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death, I tearfully questioned my social media following, “Why? What has my skin color ever done to be so offensive? Why is it that since the beginning of time, all I have known is that the Black man has been hated and treated as lesser than. For what? What is the reasoning behind all this hatred? What else can we do to prove, to show that our lives are of equal value and we do not nor does any human deserve to die in the street under the knee of another man? I am tired!” I received mostly silence, a lot of discomforts I assumed At the time I had no shame that my tears and sobs could be heard through my pleas on a camera, I wanted my friends to feel uncomfortable that their black friend was so upset with what was going on. My black peers comforted me and reassured me that I was not alone and that they too were experiencing the same frustration. I took my time to grieve then researched what I could do next. I realized that no change could be made if I continued to feel sorry. I realized that I am in a generation that wants to and WILL make a change, whether it be in the streets protesting, registering and voting for officials who will hear the black voice, or on social media. I attended a protest in New York City which walked from Union Square to Washington Square. To be surrounded by black people and allies of other races, who felt and shared the same frustration as me, showed me that I was not alone. We are the generation of change.

These events made me realize this is only the beginning. These events also helped to assure me as to what career path I want to take. I had already looked into law, but the hopeless feeling that protesting and posting on social media was not enough, reassured me. I want to be a lawyer. I want to study the law, study my rights as a citizen, and make sure that in the future no person of my color shall endure prejudice or racial discrimination no matter their background. I want to be the change in the future that makes it so African Americans are no longer incarcerated at 5 times the rate of whites. Like my black parents, grandparents, and my great grandparents before me, I want to make sure I am leaving the next generation with a better life than I have. I am sincerely thankful to my ancestors for having to endure racial bias and prejudice to create the life I have today, which would be much different had I been born a generation ago. As a Colored Girl in America, leaving the next generation of black artists, lawyers, marketers, authors, entrepreneurs, doctors, and more with a better life than we were raised in is what we’ve been doing for decades. For that is all we can hope for.

About the Author: Nicole Black is Nicole Black is a senior at Fusion Acadamy Upper West Side in New York City. Born and raised in New York, Nicole has been passionate about receiving an excellent education at institutes like Columbia Preparatory School for her 9th to 11th grade and the Dalton School from kindergarten to eighth grade. Nicole has been invested in many clubs at school, including the Community Service Club, Newspaper Club, and Dance Club. Outside of school, she is a part of a student-run community service group, SustainableStart New York. For SustainableStart and her Community Service Club, Nicole writes essays, communicates with companies and shelters for the homeless, and plans to run a SustainableStart chapter at her current school in the fall. As well, she has provided many articles for the newspaper club at her previous school. Nicole hopes to pursue a career in criminal justice, specifically to address the mass incarceration of black men and women.

The Future is The Colored Girl