July 6. 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ini\u00adtial\u00adly, I came to Great Neck for one rea\u00adson: to improve my speech. I was born with a speech imped\u00adi\u00adment that pre\u00advent\u00aded me from speak\u00ading Eng\u00adlish well. Treat\u00adment was expen\u00adsive, and my par\u00adents had just fin\u00adished pay\u00ading for our house in Elmont. My mom worked two jobs to afford the house I live in now. I say this because I want every\u00adone to under\u00adstand I\u2019m not a priv\u00adi\u00adleged Great Neck kid. My fam\u00adi\u00adly had to work hard for me and my younger sis\u00adter to bare\u00adly get by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love Great Neck. When you love some\u00adthing, you don\u2019t just embrace its strengths and ignore its weaknesses\u2014you want it to be bet\u00adter. You make demands out of love. This is my rela\u00adtion\u00adship with my coun\u00adtry and this town. I did\u00adn\u2019t real\u00adize how racist peo\u00adple in this town were when I was grow\u00ading up, but it\u2019s the truth. When I was younger, my mom always told me not to let what peo\u00adple said both\u00ader me. Now that I\u2019m 17, I can look back on hun\u00addreds of expe\u00adri\u00adences with kids, par\u00adents and even teach\u00aders that were offen\u00adsive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been told I\u2019m too trust\u00ading, but the way I see it, I have a lot of love in my heart. I always try to see the good in peo\u00adple first, but hold\u00ading them account\u00adable in times like these is essen\u00adtial. Even though I did\u00adn\u2019t know it then, all the microag\u00adgres\u00adsions and racism that sur\u00adround\u00aded me affect\u00aded my men\u00adtal health. Now that I rec\u00adog\u00adnize these forms of hate, I see them everywhere\u2014damaging my men\u00adtal health and the men\u00adtal health of my friends of col\u00ador even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regard\u00ading men\u00adtal health, I try to fol\u00adlow my mom\u2019s advice and not let what peo\u00adple say affect me. How\u00adev\u00ader, it gets hard when:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know how many times I\u2019ve been told to stop \u201cact\u00ading white\u201d when I was just being myself. Kids and adults alike have a warped sense of what it means to \u201cbe Black.\u201d They don\u2019t real\u00adize that I\u2019m a human being before I\u2019m a part of any race. If I don\u2019t act like NBA Young\u00adBoy, Ice Cube or Snoop Dogg, they think I\u2019m act\u00ading white. If I do act like them or any oth\u00ader main\u00adstream Black artist, then I\u2019m a thug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Black peo\u00adple get called names for doing things white peo\u00adple find trendy. Black girls wear\u00ading hoop ear\u00adrings are \u201cratch\u00adet,\u201d but a white girl wear\u00ading them is \u201ccute.\u201d A Black boy wear\u00ading a ban\u00addana is in a gang, but a white boy is just cel\u00ade\u00adbrat\u00ading school spir\u00adit. They quote A Boo\u00adgie and Tupac but dis\u00adre\u00adgard the mean\u00ading behind their words. They even go around school say\u00ading the N\u2011word like it\u2019s noth\u00ading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to say we can\u2019t win, but we don\u2019t even want to win\u2014we just want to tie. Black Lives Mat\u00adter isn\u2019t about putting Black peo\u00adple above any\u00adone else. It\u2019s sim\u00adply ask\u00ading for recog\u00adni\u00adtion and equal\u00adi\u00adty. Why else do you think we\u2019re protest\u00ading? If there were true equal\u00adi\u00adty, we would\u00adn\u2019t be protest\u00ading!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even peo\u00adple like Michelle Oba\u00adma, LeBron James and Masai Ujiri still face hate. These are all promi\u00adnent Black indi\u00advid\u00adu\u00adals who thought they had over\u00adcome racism, only to be dis\u00admissed by the same peo\u00adple when they speak about their strug\u00adgles. It\u2019s dis\u00adgust\u00ading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I nev\u00ader thought I had any prob\u00adlems with men\u00adtal health, but that\u2019s because, as most of my friends of col\u00ador would say, I\u2019ve been white\u00adwashed. This isn\u2019t about Black ver\u00adsus white, and it isn\u2019t about Black ver\u00adsus cops. No one should be treat\u00aded as less than any\u00adone else. We should all have an equal play\u00ading field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I should\u00adn\u2019t have to keep telling my peo\u00adple of col\u00ador to be proud of who they are because so many still think oth\u00ader\u00adwise. Peo\u00adple need to acknowl\u00adedge their mis\u00adtakes and rec\u00adog\u00adnize that what they\u2019re doing is dam\u00adag\u00ading and, sim\u00adply put, racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love my coun\u00adtry and my town. I want them to be bet\u00adter. I\u2019m not going to stop writ\u00ading until I see change. I can\u2019t empha\u00adsize enough that it starts with us. We need to take this sad song and make it bet\u00adter. We must let love, patience and hope into our hearts. Then, we can start to make the world a bet\u00adter place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
July 6. 2020 Ini\u00adtial\u00adly, I came to Great Neck for one rea\u00adson: to improve my speech. I was born with a speech imped\u00adi\u00adment that pre\u00advent\u00aded me from speak\u00ading Eng\u00adlish well. Treat\u00adment was expen\u00adsive, and my par\u00adents had just fin\u00adished pay\u00ading for our house in Elmont. My mom worked two jobs to afford the house I [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":993,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speeches"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/993"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaljournalism.uconn.edu\/kwasi-osei-amankwah-portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}