8 Epilogue

An old African saying goes "When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground". My only issue with that saying is that some of us see so much, that we become libraries at ages where most people are only small book shelves. We have lost so many great libraries. From Emmit Till, who suffered the most brutal death I can imagine, to George Floyd, who had a man kneeling on his neck for eight minutes and forty six seconds, and all those who lost their lives in between and prior to that. I wrote this story in hopes of giving non-black Americans a look at America through our eyes. I got the idea while, well, flipping a light switch. Like what if I could flip a switch and black people became the dominant, privileged race. I realized that writing this book taught me that even then, I wouldn't any feel better about racism. To oppress someone because of their color is perhaps the most childish idea I can think of. And yet, that very idea is the groundwork for America, land of the free (white people), home of the brave (minorities). This country idolizes evil, in its holidays, on our money, and even in the national anthem. Holidays such as Thanksgiving, where pilgrims did not sit down to eat with this land's natives, but instead slaughtered them, taking their country, and years later giving the few of them left a small part of their back, calling it a reservation. On every one dollar bill is the face of a slave master and 1st President George Washington. Even our national anthem boasts of the killing of slaves in its third verse in a line that reads, "No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave". (Francis Scott Key, 1814). This country is young, and that much is evident when you realize that we still fight over color. Even so, in the past few hundred years, black lives have been treated like light switches, being flipped off anytime some white person decided to kill them. It's time that we evolve past color, and time for our country to grow up. I strive to see a day when 20 years olds are only bookshelves, and not a library. And I strive to see the day when every library can stand until they are ready to give out!