1,385,340

That’s the number of people in the state of Maine alone. Made of  94.2% white alone,0.7%american Indian alone,1.4 Asian,1.8 African American/black,1.9% of two percent and or more races, and 2.0%of Hispanic Hispanic/Latino. This recent source of information came from the U.S census Bureau. 

I was 11 years old when I realized my ethnicity and thoughts made me different. My dad moved to Maine around 2016. About a year later he married my current stepmom. I didn't think anything of it when I went over there to an almost all-Caucasian stepfamily. I was used to the diversity of my old neighborhood, with all kinds of people;  Muslim, Hispanic, African American, and Black. I learned that most considered it “ghetto”,  but it was just the lifestyle I  was used to. Going from a mixed community to a very homogenous one did not register to me as anything ” wrong “ or “different, but going from neighbors with Jephte to Aaron and from a corner store around my house to a shopping plaza you had to drive to was something I had to learn to get accustomed to. 

It wasn't until I was around 13 to 14 years old that I realized I  was lumped into a different category from my step-family. 

“You don't mow your lawn?  Does your landlord do it for you?”

“We have to drive our trash to the dump, no one takes care of it for us”.

 “You can walk around the block and go hang out with the other kids”.

 “There's a lot of graffiti in the city huh?” 

All of these comments and questions didn't seem rude or meant to sound offensive but they were. I knew my living situation was different than when I visited my dad’s house with a white picket fence, backyard, garden, and fire pit, then returned home to my tiny four-bedroom apartment on the first floor, with loud neighbors, trash on the front lawn, and crack head sleeping in the park across the street from my house. So when they pointed it out it almost felt embarrassing. I was always insecure going over for the summer, having to tame my crazy curls with a mass amount of products compared to my step-sister with the nice wavy hair that never got tangled up or how I never needed to put sunscreen that badly on me because I would never burn. I just got darker and darker. My eyes were dark like mud while their blue eyes looked perfect in family photos. 

It got a bit worse when going to the stores and the lack of diverse products. I never had anything to do my hair correctly or the right lotion for my skin or the type of brush for my hair texture. and my hair was never done correctly, which was a bit shocking. My stepmother has a daughter who is half Hispanic and Caucasian and had kinky curly hair, curlier than mine. I would never forget the day I went to an all-white hair salon. They didn’t know how to treat or deal with my hair so they cut it the way they thought it was “supposed to be done”. 

I went home with butchered and uneven hair. 

From 2017 for all owned employer firms in the state of Maine, there are 32,955 in total. Out of that 32,955, there are only 867 minority-owned. 

Minority subjugation happens all the time in white majority populated areas flushing and silencing out groups of minorities and of our heritage and cultures to fit the standard outside of our own. The lack of education that happens at schools or the fear of speaking up on topics that NEED to be spoken about with attention. Black history month shouldn’t happen only during February, Christopher Columbus wasn’t a good guy and Native Americans aren’t savage beasts that needed to be purified. The view of how we look into the eyes of those who don’t have to worry about their sons walking down the street without being mistaken for “a hood rat” or judging how they couldn’t possibly live in that rural neighborhood because how could a person of color live somewhere so expensive?

5.8 million black people, and 2.5 million Hispanics, are killed by police shootings on an average yearly, at a higher rate faster than most white Americans. Every downfall of a minority group has fallen into the hands of the law, political hand, and government say of a white person. We need to start letting people of color speak up louder to help educate and end the manslaughter of minorities, instead of being forced to be silent and hold those accountable.