I am ​so tired of all the outrage about Kaepernick and his protest, especially now that other players are joining in. But still we have no outrage over the cause of the protest. Is it because you dont want to be exposed or be honest about the injustices that are going on?  I am not going to say that every incident of injustice is rooted in racism. That would be irresponsible on my part. But I do believe that every incident has been at least based on perception and lack of value. The perception that the percentage of Black Men are a  threat is much higher than it is that we are not a threat. That’s  the cause. A perception that is heavily influenced by what America is seeing on television and how we are portrayed. Much of this is also fueled by images we display in music and rap videos. Images of gun toting, menacing, violent characters walking about ready to “set it off” in a moments notice. 

A lot of this behavior is used to demand respect by exuding fear. All because we have never gotten the respect as a man or equal man in this country from day we were chained and dragged here! But we have gone about this quest for respect in an unproductive way. Oprah Winfrey felt that America gave you respect if you had money. If you had money, and used it wisely you also gained power. You get money and power, you have respect.  Oprah’s quest in life was to build her wealth to become respected after the injustices she saw growing up in Mississippi. We are not wrong to demand respect and value in this country, for the simple fact that we deserve it. Our lives as Black people are just as valuable as any other race in this country. We deserve the same justice as any other race in this country.  But we as Black people have to make sure that we are showing examples of valuing our own lives the way we are demanding it from others. If we continue the Black on Black violence in our own communities, and dont show value for each other, who’s going to listen when we demand it from the rest of the country. It is clear that they are not listening when we say that Black Lives Matter. And that is because we are not showing it in our own communities. We are killing each other over sneakers.  Drug dealers are selling drugs not in suburban America, but in the Black community. Dragging down our own people. We have to start the change in this country and not just demand change. We have to value Black Lives first, and then pray that the rest of this country follows suit.