Dear Black Men,

They say we will never be an important part of society, constantly degrading us and our value. I understand that they fear us and our greatness but you can’t stop us. As long as we stick together and try to do better than we will be better. They are afraid of our uniqueness and the change that we can bring to society. We are all not perfect but without the flaws we have that would never make us different.

 I am constantly afraid of the world we live in because of how we are depicted. Dead beat dads, violent hoodlums, uneducated niggas, heartless nobodies and jobless losers is what they consider us. They are stuck in the same mindset from the 1950s and not really getting to know us. We are all different and contribute to society.

My name is Kevin Pierre, I am Haitian American. I have a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering Technologies and a Masters in Information Systems. I have a career and I am a co-founder of a non-profit, which focuses on community service and helping to build our youth. My parents have been together for almost 30 years and I have 2 siblings.  I am not a statistic, my household is not a statistic and we would not want to be considered one.

To my black men, I wake up every day thankful for another day of life. The way that society and media portrays us always hurts me inside. I always feel I have to tell people around me how much I appreciate/love them in my life because I may be the next one that shows up in a news story. We could say, that might not happen to us but it has happened to everyday regular people.

To my black men, keep your head up and keep pushing to be better. Society can’t hold us back forever. They can discourage us, talk about us and hurt us but they can’t bring down who we are. The moment we let them is the moment we accept what society has labeled us. I refuse to be a label, I refuse to be defined by society and I refuse to be anyone else besides myself.

To my black men we are different, unique, versatile, powerful and ambitious. Don’t let anyone destroy your drive because of your skin color. Kill them with kindness, make them fear you and show them what you are truly made of. 

Respectfully,

Kevin Pierre