This time one month ago I wrote a blog explaining my reasoning for why lives matter. In the wake of the rioting going on in Baltimore, Maryland, I feel that now it is more important than ever to understand what is going on.

The Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This language gave way to what we call the American Dream, which is the ideal that every United States citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Although the thought and ideals are a great concept, it is still a sad reality that in many urban communities throughout the United States, American citizen are not treated as equals and they have so many obstacles placed in their way that the American Dream, is virtually impossible.

This week I watched a video entitled Racism is Real* that really drove home this concept. http://youtu.be/fTcSVQJ2h8g.

Key points that are highlighted in this video are:

• When reviewing resumes from candidates that have identical education and work experience, employers were 50% less likely to call back a candidate with a black sounding name than a candidate that has a white sounding name.
• Black people are charged prices roughly $700 higher that white people when buying cars.
• Multiple studies have shown that black drivers are twice as likely to get pulled over.
• Black clients are shown 17.7% fewer houses for sale.
• Marijuana use is equal between blacks and whites but black people are 4 times more likely to be arrested.
• Black people are incarcerated at nearly 6 times the rate of white people.
• Doctors did not inform black patients as often as white ones about important heart procedure.
• White legislators did not respond as frequently to constituents with black sounding names, in both political parties.

This video addressed a lot of issues and there are still studies that show inequalities between whites and blacks in education, jobs opportunities, housing, enforcement of laws and many more. How is this equal? With so many barriers and road blocks how is the American Dream achievable? That is why you have seen riots going on across the country for decades. It is pure frustration that it seems no matter how hard black people try it is not going to be enough. Even with a black man elected as President of the United States, there are still injustices that occur everyday in this country that are based solely on stereotypes and race.

Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said “When you cut the facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.” That is what you are seeing in Baltimore. That is what you have seen in Detroit, Los Angeles, Lexington, Manhattan (Harlem), Philadelphia, and many more cities. This is a cry for help on a mission to be heard. How many more riots and lives have to be loss before we realize that there is a problem in this country. It is time to stop acting like racism and white privilege does not exist and began making concrete steps to fixing the problems. If we continue to ignore this problem it will only get worse. And the United States will never be the country that our forefathers envisioned it would be. Is time that we all unite because at the end of the day whether you are White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc., we are all AMERICANS. We all are created equal and we all deserve the unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

*Data information referenced at the end of the video.