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Racism: Where Do We Go From Here? Young Black men tackle topic at CMC forum

Featuring Playon Patrick, Andrew Pierce and Michael Bivens III.

The only way to beat racism is to challenge it, no matter who you are or where you’re from. That’s the message two young Black men hoped the audience took away from their appearance at the latest forum held by the Columbus Metropolitan Club Wednesday.

Michael Bivens and Andrew Pierce are both college students and activists.  With the recent police killings of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, they spoke on the current racial climate in our country and the protests for change.

“Death should not be the first resort to everything,” said Bivens, a graduate of Whitehall Yearling High School and current North Carolina A&T student.  “You can go through every story in the book. Unarmed black man, why is he being shot? Why is he a threat? A black man running away from police, why does he get three bullets in the back?”

Bivens believes some of what’s happening is due to the innate fear of the young Black male.  He can’t speak for every Black man in America. But he can speak about his experience as a Black man in America.

“People that do not look like me have to cross the street just based upon how they view me and I’m just walking up the street minding my business,” Bivens said.

Another problem is the way media portrays Black men.  American television, film and news can project to the rest of the world an image of Black men. 

Pierce is a graduate of Columbus Alternative High School who is currently studying public policy at The Ohio State University.  He says that stereotypical, negative portrayal can lead to a negative perception of Black men.

“You’re either seen as a LeBron, as an athlete. Or a rapper, or a thug,” Pierce says about Black men in media.  “Or you’re a Black exception, right? And that Black exception is someone who’s in a suit, at a college. You see them, they’re an exception, they’re rare and they’re not really what Black men are supposed to be.”

But how did we get here?  Both young men say it’s embedded in each person from one generation to the next.

“For 300, 400 years, my people were seen as less than human. Let’s take it further. For only the past 56 years, I’ve been recognized as a full citizen and given the right to vote and given the right to go into any public space that I want to go into,” Pierce said.  “So, it’s engrained into the very fabric of America.”

Pierce says, on one side, the generational trauma of slavery and then the fight for civil rights has been passed on and so has generational racism on the other side.

But both young men are optimistic that city and state leaders are listening to protestors and starting to talk about ways to address the inequities in their communities.

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