Before I set out on my journey of acquiring more information about systemic racism prevalent in our nation today, I often fell into the trap of not believing racism existed today since the actions I associated with racism, like the backlash to the Civil Rights Movement in the ‘60s, did not occur anymore, to my limited knowledge. It wasn’t until the shootings of Trayvon Martin and later, Michael Brown that I began to seriously consider the topic of race in America. I can admit that I had a lot of push back in my mind to the idea of police brutality and profiling of people of color, in particular, African-American men. I used to strictly abide by societal rules, so if someone broke the law or was up to nefarious activities, then they deserved to be punished. But the concept of killing a person who was unarmed really forced me to reevaluate my beliefs over race and racism.…