Jasmine Shabazz,
Beachwood, Ohio.

So, never once have I blamed the white kids and there families for slavery. Never once did I say there ancestors enslaved mine. And I hate to look like the girl who always plays the race card, or who always wants to cry about the struggles my ancestors went through. But when I feel like my struggle is being downplayed or overlooked I can’t help but too speak out. And to my peers it may seem like I’m always speaking, but that’s the result of being more than one minority. My mother is Puerto rican and black, My father is Saudi Arabian and black. Highly unfavored! And I would never put my struggle over anyone else’s but at my school it is a high concentration of Jewish people and its so amazing to me too see there culture thrive and how tight knit the community is. And so when you sit in a class of kids that are mainly Jewish it seems at times that there struggle is being put over mine. And that doesn’t go down easy for me because after there oppression they bounced back and I commend there community for being so strong. But my people are still so broken that we can’t seem to get ahead and this kills me because I wish after our culture has been erased and we have been stepped on that we can come back and unify and show how magic us ” Blacks” really are. But in 2016 it seems impossible. SO I’m sorry if this has offended anyone but I can’t hold my tongue when it comes to defending and representing my ancestors. I accept there struggle as my own and it will not be forgotten until the pain is.