Just by looking at someone’s skin color a lot of stereotypes flood through your mind. If you are dark-skinned you are seen as a drug addict who is violent and carries weapons. We have grown up to believe all these stereotypes. According to Obama “…Whatever hardships you may experience because of your race, they pale in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured – and overcame.” This just shows how we are taught to be responsible for what other people think of us. How we are the ones who should change and not the people who think this way of us?
According to the Center for Disease Control’s annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, dark-skinned people are getting arrested for crimes that they didn’t commit. In the article they state that “… in 2001, Whites and African Americans reported similar rates of carrying a weapon (Whites 17.9%, African Americans 15.2%). African American youth represent 32% of all weapons arrests, and were arrested for weapons offenses at a rate twice that of whites.” This just shows us how we can be criminalized by people just by having them look at us and create opinions about what they think of us.
Many blame the parents for not showing their kids the difference between right and wrong. What they don’t know is that they may not have the time just because they are trying to make a living for their children. According to Michael Eric Dyson, parents aren’t to blame for the way their kids turn out to be. In the article Dyson states “Hence, it is incredibly difficult to spend as much time with children as poor black parents might like; especially since they will be demonized if they fail to provide for their children’s basic needs.” If parents decided to dedicate their entire live to their children, they would still be criticized. Parents are really criticized by the way they raise their children, but they are also criticized if they do not provide for the basic needs of their children.
The stereotypes created about dark-skinned people do not let them move on to become great people and work just as hard as everyone else. The problem with the argument others would make is that the parents are always to blame, but that system is also at fault. The systems arrests the youth based on their looks and what they perceive the youth to carry with them. The problem is that youth lose hope and aspiration when they see that no matter what, that discrimination will be expected to be their future.
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