How do you deal with a virus? Well, you can wear a mask and stay 6ft apart from others and wash your hands. An even more challenging question is, how do you deal with racism and hate? Well my opinion is, as a kid, you may feel powerless and like you don’t matter but there is something called a ripple effect. That’s where you do an action to influence change, and someone sees what you did for your family or community, and they follow your steps and continue the change too. Then they pass it on and It keeps going. You may be judged because of your skin color, hairstyle, or where you live, but it important to remember that there is only one of YOU on this planet – past, present, and future. So you should live your life to the fullest, spread kindness, and make a difference.

Racism is probably one of the worst problems we have right now and it isn’t right.  I feel like we only try to fix it when something bad happens, like George Floyd’s death. When that happened, everyone got mad and started to protest about it. I feel like we should pay attention to racism, whether it’s on the news or not. I’m not saying that we don’t do this already; I’m just saying we need to pay more attention to it. 

My parents always tell me to represent. That means look presentable, smile, and look people in the eyes. As a community, we shouldn’t judge people that are different from us. That only shows that we are a racist community; we don’t want that. We should represent ourselves instead as a community that cares about everyone, whether they are people of color or not. We need to make everyone feel equal. Racism and prejudice in our world are very bad right now. It is getting worse. But if you change your own mindset and actions, you can help fix it. Just remember, you have power:  the power to represent your community, and make a big and better difference to end racial injustice.