Welcome to the first degree. For this week's episode, we wanted to hand over our Mike

to our Black listeners to share their experiences of growing up and living in America. To everyone

who sent in their stories, thank you. We appreciate the time and energy you gave us and we

feel honored that we can use our platform to help amplify your voices.

We are actively working to become better allies to our Black community, which includes

educating ourselves, listening to Black voices and stories, and dotting into causes that

fight injustice in our country. We encourage open and respectful conversation in our Facebook

group. We will actively be searching for cases that highlight the injustices that Black

Americans face every day. So if you have a connection to one, please email us at hello

at thefirstreepodcast.com. In tour Black Firsties, we stand with you. We support you and we love you.

Hi, my name is Kendra and I'm tired. I mean, tired probably doesn't even come close to

what it really is. It's generational exhaustion. I'm tired. My mom's tired. My grandma's tired.

My great grandma's tired. My great, great, great, great, great, great, and it keeps going. We're tired.

If you are Black like me, if you know what I'm saying when I say that I'm tired,

just not even not alone. We've never been alone. There have been over 400 years of pain,

of racism, of murder in this country. We are standing on top of all of it every single day with

every step we take. And it shocks me to my core that most people aren't even educated, not only on

the history, but the systematic injustices that this country has founded on that people thrive upon.

You know, when we sit there in class, right, we'll think back to middle school and we have US

history classes. I'm going to talk about European history too. We talk about so many different

things in there's that one chapter on slavery. If you're like me, new group in a white neighborhood,

so the whole classroom of white kids turn around and they look right at you. Yikes. Yikes for you.

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