So, you expect me to use proper English, and normally I am one who speaks by the book. Capitalize all proper names. Funny thing today during my English class we read a poem and it resonated so deeply within me, perhaps its why my disobedience. Certainly, I was taught proper English but why am I so afraid to break its laws. What can the reader do to me except judge me, it’s not as if it’s a crime punishable by law?

Is it okay to not conform where i need not see fit. Surely conforming is the reason all horrible practices are carried through history, and everyone knows they are wrong but simply looks away. they resign that they are just one person and can’t do anything to change the current state of things.

“You alone have so much power when you find it the people you will help will be infinite” he whispered this to my spirit when i was at my worst. and today He’s whispering it to you. asking me to communicate his words- find your individuality in swimming against the current- the key to surviving is taking as many with you, you can change the current of the water.

My message to you is we are the ones who can stop BIAS. We can recognize our own bias and we could begin to ask ourselves why we feel certain ways? is it because we experienced something firsthand or because we were taught it? We heard it so now we know it’s true. Understand if we judge an entire class of people based on one person’s actions, are we not just as bad. I mean ask yourself let me not put words in your mouth.

All of this to say, stop letting other people’s norms keep your thinking rigid. In other words, just because people say such and so about so and so, you don’t have to accept that as true. i once had a person with red hair start trouble with me. Does that mean every red hair person will start trouble? Does that mean that same person with red hair will always start trouble? just like I change that person is also capable. and certainly no one else should be held responsible for that one person’s temporary act.

See let me put the poem that triggered this, and you will https://blogs.iwu.edu/contemporaryamericanpoetry/2014/01/31/at-the-cemetery-walnut-grove-plantation-south-carolina-1989/

This poem is about a forgotten slave plantation and written in the same way no capital letters. i think the author is saying that the people buried in that cemetery deserved dignity and respect and she wanted their names so she could see that their names were respected. she saw everything around them that was done by the sweat of their brow, but no one gave them credit or remembered their names.

Thats something throughout history people are not honored people are not remembered because other humans decide they are not significant or deserving. It’s time we stop letting people have the choice to deem us important or unimportant based on stereo types and implicit bias. It’s time to stop marching to the beat if the beat has proven ignorant and harmful.

It’s time we stop labeling others as if we are any better. We are all created equal is it us that gives a right to separation. When I make the choice not to judge or assume, i can teach others through example and change a nation one heat and one mind at a time. the key first is to recognize just because something has been accepted does not mean it’s RIGHT>

You have power- use it to change the world. go against the grain> stop worrying about what others will say!! Do what is right and let them change with you or answer to God.