Column: Let us be a different generation than our parents

Breonna Taylor: murdered in her own apartment.

George Floyd: killed by a police officer.

Ahmaud Aubrey: shot dead by three white residents.

Racism is real and it is time we fully educated ourselves on the Black Life Matter movement.

The three victims that I listed above are not the only ones to suffer the consequences of racism in America. If the acts of racism do not end here, how many more innocent lives are going to be taken?

Coach Kenny Thomas, head baseball coach at USC Aiken recently commented supporting “the Blue” on a social media post. Thomas received negative comments from students at USCA because of his comment “it is 100% percent shameful” to have football helmet with the BLM’s sticker present.

“While the university is committed to helping individuals learn how to think, we cannot tell them what to think,” wrote Sandra J. Jordan, chancellor of USCA, in an email sent out to all students.

Police brutality toward Black people and Coach Thomas’s apparent lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement just made me realize that in this time being silent is dangerous.

The future of our generation: are we still going to ignore the acts of racism?

 Current events reveal that racism exists in our societies today. Millions of people of color experience discrimination because of the color of their skin or their culture.  

I am a Vietnamese American; I will never know what it is like to be an African American. My mother never has to tell me that I will be treated differently by the police because of my skin color, my mother did not have to teach me about encounters with polices.

The future of our generation is in our hands, starting with us.

USC Aiken students: we are the future of this society, we will be a different generation than our parents, we will stand with our Black brothers and sisters we will stop racism starting with this.

Let these students express their grievances and listen to it, take it into account as to why they are hurting. Listen and educate yourself about the history of slavery in America, learn to appreciate and love a person by who they are not because of their skin color.

Students at USC Aiken, what happened recently should affect all of us as a whole, don’t wait for another time to stop racism, don’t stay silent. It could take more than 10 years but it’s time we start. Students we are the future leaders of America let’s make it our goals for America to be anti-racist in the future.

“It’s important for us to also understand that the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability,” — Barack Obama.