The Consequences Of Silence

Silence is the seed from which deceit and hatred grow. The lack of conversation in this country has fractured the walls of the nation we call a “melting pot.” For decades, there was a rift being formed by a lack of understanding. Generations that lived before the civil rights movement are still alive today and so is the bigotry that was meant to be dead. What followed the civil rights movement was not the end of racism, it was the beginning of silence.

The ideas adopted from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama have been of trying to strike down those who are racist. But what occurred was not the extinction, it was the adaption of hate. In the past, with a government that was hands off on the racial argument before the civil rights movement, we saw that it was an open season of hate and discrimination.

Long after the elimination of Jim Crow Laws and lynching, these ideas live in the thoughts of those whose minds are closed and whose hearts are hollow. There is blood on the leaves staining this nation with innocent lives being ended, profiled by their skin color and not their actions.

Hate has learned from the past and, instead of a change of heart, has found a change of strategy. Hate is not being spoken at you— it is in the glaring eyes, it is in typing thumbs, it is in the silence that hovers over when you are near and it is in the whispers while you walk away.

When you venture from the city you find it. I found it when walking into a restaurant and had the audacity to be who I am and speak the way I do. The chatter and clink of dining had died and what was left was the silence and their eyes that had spoken enough for me to understand.

“You are not welcome, you are not welcome, you are not welcome,” their eyes said. I left knowing that although there were many tables open for me and my group to sit at, they were not meant for us.

With the entrance of this new administration we see a deviation from the black and white of president’s past and find ourselves living in the gray of not truly knowing the intentions of our president. We see that our president would rather dance than stand firm against discrimination. With his silence alone, he has turned a blind eye to hate and is allowing it to fester. With our president’s silence, we, the individual, must stand vigilant and speak out against the storm of hatred bearing down on our house. The ending of silence is at the beginning of speaking, of conversation, of understanding and of harmony.