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Don T Understand The Protest By Kareem Abdul Jabbar

566 Words3 Pages

Visualize the one thing in the world that means the most to you. Now imagine that thing being taken away, even if you have the right to have it. This is what it feels like to be an African American. To have everything free for everyone, taken away. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the op-ed, “Don’t Understand the Protests”? What You’re Seeing is People Pushed to the Edge,” analyzes the nonstop racism occurring in the world and the actions being taken by the people affected. Abdul-Jabbar supports his analysis by the repeating theme of breathing, his comparison of different perspectives, and connections of injustice with metaphors. Abdul-Jabbar's purpose is not to change the minds of people, but to push people for the end of injustice. From the beginning to the end of the op-ed, Abdul-Jabbar …show more content…

Racism in America is like dust in the air.” Every day African Americans are inhaling the smoke of Racism, unable to gasp for air. Breathing is a skill you are born with, Abdul-Jabbar emphasizes throughout his reading the deprivation people of color endure just to breathe. African Americans are fighting with everything inside them “not because they want bars and nail salons open, but because they want to live. To breathe.” To have the right to “breathe” taken away from you is not something small; it is much bigger than that. Abdul-Jabbar intentionally uses the word “breathe” to connect it to the white male/female audience. Imagine not being able to breathe, a skill that costs nothing. It truly shows that everything for them comes with a cost, even just to live. To continue the idea of imaging, Abdul-Jabbar reflects on the lives of different perspectives in his writing. The phrases “[i]f you’re white” and “[i]f you’re black” are used a multiplicity of times. It allows the white audience to see the immense difference between their own lives and African

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