When the topics of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and now the most recent Eric Garner come up, I often find myself fighting a heavy argument.

My beliefs are strong, and I refuse to let myself just fall back when someone says something like, “You don’t understand, you’re white.”

That’s very true, I’m white, it’s also true I don’t, and never will understand the feeling of what African Americans have felt before.

At the same time, a pigment of color shouldn’t be a reason I can’t speak on what is obvious.

The verdict of the Ferguson trial left me feeling a certain anger I wasn’t able to express, not only anger, but hurt. The night the verdict had been read, riots, protests, looting, all of it had started happening immediately and here I was, trying to process how to react.

Wondering how to speak and comprehend how the United States is made out to have this perfect justice system, but the most obvious crimes are receiving no punishment, and families are receiving not one inch of justice.

The country that’s supposed to be the promise land, has turned into the kill someone of color and get away with murder land. Where’s the justice in that?

I’ve always been taught to be proud of who I am, but recently I’ve been second guessing that. Why should I be so proud to be white, or an American in that matter when the world I’m living in is like this?

Race is a main piece in all of these cases, all of the men killed were black murdered by someone of the opposite race. None of which have been charged.

W.E.B. Du Bois, a man recognized for his social goals once said, “A system cannot fail those it was never meant to protect.” I’ve never fully understood that sentence until I sat down and thought about all of these cases.

African Americans will never be seen the same, no matter the generation or situation there will never be enough justice to justify for everything that’s happened or even will happen. There’s no chapter in a textbook, or words from a teacher on a lesson in a history class to make it right.

If it was the other way around, a black man killing a white man he’d never see or feel sun beat down on his body again. Disagree with me? Go right ahead, you won’t be the first, third or twentieth.

On August 28th, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. made the “I have a dream” speech and said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

51 years ago this was his dream. If you think about it, nothing has really changed since then. Except a few rights here and there, the racism still exists, the judgment still exists, America is still the same as it was 51 years ago just with more technology.

I worry for the next few generations. I worry for when I have children what will I tell them when they ask questions? How will I explain to them why they’re looked at differently, or followed in a store when they’re with their friends?

I hope by then I won’t need to. I hope for things to actually be different, and for a pigment of your skin color to not determine how the justice system applies to you.