After being physically assaulted on numerous occassions by crooked correctional officers over the course of my nearly 24 years of being imprisoned, and being repeatedly framed by racist prison administrations, I’ve come to the conclusion that the United States of America is not a country that I can live in as a Black man. With this being said, whenever I’m finally freed from Ohio’s modern-day slave trade (i.e. Ohio’s Department of Rehabilitation), as soon as I’m legally able to do so, I’m leaving the U.S. for good. I don’t even know what country I want to move to at this particular time. What I do know is that I’m definitely relocating out of the U.S. I can no longer live in this racist country that refuses to move away from racism, and I don’t want to live anywhere that refuses to treat non-White citizens as equals to that of Whites.
The racism that is ingrained in the U.S. is sickening. I mean, take for instance all of the backlash that has been heaped upon former NFL player Colin Kaepernick for his refusal to stand during the national anthem in protest of the mistreatment of Blacks by the U.S. criminal justice system. There shouldn’t be one iota of backlash against his stance, and here’s why:
The national anthem is composed of four (4) verses, but the first (1) verse is the only verse that’s recited at the beginning of sporting events. The third (3) verse, however, is composed of lyrics that are outright racist and offensive (e.g. “No refuge could save the hireling and slave…”). So, if the national anthem consists of lyrics that are unquestionably pro-slavery in nature, how can anyone claim to be offended because various Black athletes, such as the NFL’s Michael Bennett, refuse to stand during the singing of the anthem? There’s nothing offensive about a Black person not wanting to praise a racist national anthem. In my opinion, the only reason that people claim to be offended by the anthem protests is because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that the U.S. — past and present — is a country that reeks of racism and is a country that is only “the land of the free” for some.
I don’t know if the U.S. will ever transcend its racist past and present? Until recently, I was optimistic that it could. Today, however, I am doubtful, and I no longer want to live in a country that is dead set on trying to camouflage its racist identity through the guise of “patriotism” and “law and order.” I refuse to conform to being a desensitized and ruthless patriotic robot-like citizen that needs to be told how to think by the string-pulling U.S. status quo. For this reason, I’m leaving this country — that is, as soon as I can free myself from the strangle-like hold of Ohio’s racist and corrupt criminal justice system.