Hello English 1102, My name is Marie, and I’d like to share a little about who I am with you all! I’m from St. Thomas (an island owned by the United States) so I grew up with a heavy island influence, I’m also Nigerian (NAIJA FAMILY!), and I grew up in Florida for most of my life. I remember there being a lot of culture in Florida it was just a melting pot of people there were Jamaicans, Antiguans, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Hattians, Cubans, Africans, and more many types of people who all got along. No matter who you were in Florida you knew that the people around you cared and had stories so similar to one another, that’s where I grew up, I grew up around love and care.

I remember sitting on the living room floor one day, I was about 15 years old, and watching a news story on the murder of a beautiful black boy named Trayvon Martin. Hearing his name till this day still brings involuntary tears to my eyes. Trayvon Martin was a young black boy whose life was wrongfully taken from him. His death, in a way, opened my eyes to see more than just love and care surrounding me. When I saw the man, who had killed Trayvon my heart ached. George Zimmerman, the man who took a youths life on no good grounds, was a citizen of the formerly known as loving and caring community of Florida. Sure Miami out of the whole of Florida has some of the highest crime rates known out of the whole state but what George Zimmerman did wasn’t processed in my adolescent mind as a “crime” it wasn’t just another gang shooting, or the occasional robbery. It was different, I have seen channel seven news cover so many crimes in one day, and they all brushed over my head but this one wasn’t just the regular everyday Miami homicide, it  was more than that, in my mind it meant war. Not a physical war with guns and grenades but a war of the mental. I didn’t know Trayvon, but I remember the day I saw his mother on television mourning the loss of her son I too broke down as if he were my own brother. That was the day I sat down and read my history, did my own research and realized being a black woman or man in America is like living without breathing or feeling, it’s like you’re being stifled, or covered from head to toe with a million boulders and rocks. Numb, I felt numb to sum it all up. Everywhere a black person goes in America they will experience some form of racism, discrimination or hate. Whether they’re applying for a job, in school, at home, in restaurants, at stores, on the street, in an office, even if they were the president of the United States it is impossible to be free as a black man or woman in this country.

To help ware off the numbness that started to settle into my bones I began standing up for myself when I felt wronged, I called my friends out on discriminatory things they’d say. I spoke to my family members who seemed to be blind to the state of this country and how we have to navigate everyday life, I put “Pro-Black” in my twitter bio, I shaved my permed hair off to let my crown of curls grow, I read a little about my history every day, I started buying from a black business every Friday, I completely changed my mindset and views of this world. I changed what being black meant to me, being black means to be proud to me today, my features resemble my Nigerian ancestors, their bravery, and beautiful souls were passed on to me and rile through my blood.

Even though I had changed so much about me, I want everyone I meet to know I stand for more than just being black, I am a feminist, I am an LGBTQ+ ally. I am also a supporter of #BLM, #metoo, and so much more. Because I care, caring for people is something that has always been a part of me it’s the reason why I want to be a doctor so I can help a wide range of people in this world in more ways than imagined possible.

As a black woman in America I may never be entirely free but as said by Nelson Mandela “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.”. I will take my degree in biology to then earn a degree in medical school and with each passing semester I will continously collect all the knowledge I can get to then help change the world and to show impressionable youth that no matter where you are, no matter the color of your skin we all can be free someday.