As a black person it seems often in this world of today that we matter less, not more, and I wonder how do we really make a difference and what is that difference all about.
Why do we have to be so different? We are humans, just as all other races of people are human. The world that we live in is not anyone’s to own. It is not paid and bought real estate; none of us own it. We are here on borrowed time, in borrowed space.
We are the others, the ones that are chosen – separate churches, separate schools, separate neighborhoods, even the restaurants we frequent, everything separate.
What makes a white man in Florida feel so entitled that he would reach across a counter at a McDonald’s restaurant and yank a young black girl across a counter because he did not like the information she was giving him about straws? He insisted that she get fired then sat down to finish his food and kicked an employee before he left the restaurant after the police were finally called. Why was he not in handcuffs?
Yet some white people try to get insulted when you mention their white privilege.
We as the others live in neighborhoods that are riddled by the sounds of gunshots and theft and murders and all kinds of crime. The newspapers and the media splash the news for all to see. The news media does not tell the whole story of beautiful, proud black people who are at the top of their game despite all obstacles that might come their way.
There seems to be no end in sight as their once-beautiful neighborhoods deteriorate. The silence of the Penrose area in North St. Louis is deafening. The residential buildings are deteriorating, school buildings vacant, children bused out of the neighborhood at break of dawn and returning home at dusk of evening. Money is leaving the city schools with investors and eminent domain on stand-by. Black folks’ parents who worked hard to move into North St. Louis would turn over in their graves If they could see it now.
The Penrose area once an area of professionals – doctors, lawyers, school principals, teachers, pharmacists, McDonnell-Douglas employees, postal workers, staff from the federal records center. These are the black folks that I knew in the Penrose area of North St. Louis. They were all hard-working, dedicated people who raised their children in the North St. Louis area at a time when the children walked to school every morning, and back home at daylight instead of at dusk of night on a school bus, with none of the fear that is so prevalent now.
If North St. Louis were given half as much care as South St. Louis by its residents, police and city government, what a wonderful place it could be. If we could learn to live together in the neighborhoods and co-exist together it would also be a wonderful thing.
The borrowed time that we have on this earth and the borrowed land that we live on are gifts from God we must use wisely.  Â
