# @trayfour on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DV6cUdYDh96
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/60085985-trayfour-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/0a4fb0ba19.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-03-15T19:33:11.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Ray Allen (@trayfour) — https://gondola.cc/trayfour

## Caption

I grew up believing America wanted to see me shine.
Believing these United States truly cared about everyone.

From middle school to high school to college and then to an adult working, paying taxes, and trying to build a life — I’ve seen a different reality.
Too many times I’ve heard friends say racism no longer exists 😳
But systemically, this country is still deeply rooted in it.
Through classrooms. Through lived experience. Watching laws pass that disenfranchise Native Americans, Black communities and Brown communities… and through seeing Black lives taken in the streets without justice — the picture became harder to ignore. The Founding Fathers didn’t design the American Dream for everyone. “We the People” sounded like a promise — but at the start it was a promise written for white men with power. Native Americans were erased. Black people were counted as three-fifths — not fully human.
Equality was declared while exclusion was practiced. In many ways, it still is. That truth should sting. It should make us uncomfortable. It should make us honest.
But the story didn’t end there.
Every generation since has fought — marched, organized, spoken, sacrificed — to force those words to mean what they always should have meant. “WE THE PEOPLE”, means all of us. Black-White-Brown, no matter what language you speak or where you come from. It is actually a real shame that I have to say this! #wethepeople

## Stats

- **Views:** 10,609
- **Likes:** 1,279
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 30

## Tags

wethepeople

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