What made me write about black people were my family and the people in my school. Also the beginning of the school, I felt racism between my white classmates and teachers. I don’t know how the classmates felt, but I felt like some teachers were siding with the white kids. First I was going to just write about racism, but then I figured I should write about the positive things too, the things people should be proud of about being black. Because of this, it was the only thing in my mind.


A certain thing my family and I love is fried chicken, mac and cheese, and collard greens with hot sauce. The black people that I know love to scream and yell, especially my mom. My family is full of black hardcore parents; one of them has to be my mom. She wants me to get really high grades, but I don’t really get high grades. All she is trying to do is look after me. I think what makes you a true African- American is that you have an African name, like mine, it means wisdom in Swahili. Most of my family is good at sports, one of the reasons why is because I have all boy cousins, but I think it is also because we have West Indian in us. Like Malik, he does track and basketball and he is good at both.


Black peoples hair is nothing like anybody else’s. There is nappy hair and soft hair. My hair is soft. Then there are hair styles, black women love to wear weaves or extensions. They go overboard; half of them have weaves so bad that it moves every time they walk. Some women get perms to make their hair straight or they get blow outs. People were afros, braids, dreadlocks or Mohawks. Black people had just started wearing Mohawks, but I wear them every now and then. I also switch between braids and rubber band hair styles. I don’t think black people get lice. My mom said that we don’t get lice because of the oil in our hair; it is too sticky to lay eggs. All I know is that I never got lice, but some black people get a lot of dandruff. One thing that is true for every black person is we get ashy a lot, especially in the winter when we have to use a lot of lotion.


Some people think that all black people are ghetto and ignorant. Some are and some aren’t. I even think some taxi divers are racist. Just because they think we are ghetto they think we are going to a dangerous place, they don’t stop and ask where you are going. Sometimes the taxi would have nobody in them and past us, some would be off duty and some wouldn’t. Then my mom told me that one time a taxi diver said he hated picking up black people only because she was telling him to go a certain way. I still think there is racism in the world.

A lot of black people die because they are killing each other; one of the reasons why are gangs. On the news people are getting shot, stabbed, or sliced because black are fighting over each other. Or black people are getting killed over silly things. Gangs have been going on for ever. Why can’t they be stopped? Or why isn’t anybody doing something to stop it? There are even movies with messages that violence should stop between us. Shouldn’t they get the message buy now? Also drugs are killing us. I can see that people can’t stop people who do drugs because it is every where.

Racism goes way back, all they way from when we were taken from Africa and put
into The New World (America) and Europe. We got mistreated; whipped and limbs missing. Slaves weren’t even getting paid all of these and there were about 2 million slaves in America not being able to eat or have an education. Then slavery had ended, but nothing changed. A group called Ku Klux Klan was ex confederate soldiers trying to kill every
black person and burning down anything that was theirs. Racism goes all the way back till
1518.

My purpose of the piece was to write down all the crazy stuff we do, but also the hard times we have been through. I wanted to get people to notice black people. I went through different elements that I thought were important to black people. I talked about hair, racism, violence, and my definition of black people. I wanted more people to get to know a few things about black people.