Every morning as I prepare to write an article, I check the front pages of all the major newspapers to see what’s going on in the world. 

When it comes to American news, there’s a trend. Every day a white male politician has just passed a law making the lives of minorities harder. Some billionaire has taken on a selfish and wildly expensive project that is destroying the earth. Add a mass shooting, a hate crime, and a case of police brutality, and you’ve got the American news cycle. 

In light of the investigation finding New York Governor Andrew Cuomo guilty of years of sexual harassment, I’m finding it harder and harder to have any faith in this notion of “justice” I have spent my entire (albeit short) life fighting for. Cuomo was found to violate multiple federal and state laws. Joe Biden and nearly every other leading politician have called for his resignation. Yet, he is still in his office right now, making decisions for one of the largest cities in the world. 

He represents my city, and he is an active abuser. 

It is hard for me to fathom that our criminal justice system is so perfectly built to protect powerful white men that despite overwhelming evidence, Cuomo will just be another criminal politician who faces no consequences. 

My father, Shaun King, has faced the kind of scrutiny that should be reserved for people who actually have acted in a criminal or unethical manner. 

Last week, our family’s address, the address where my mother and siblings and puppies live was posted by multiple news outlets. Pictures of the front of our house, the yard where my siblings play, were everywhere. My family who has done nothing to deserve this now has to pack up our lives and leave my mother's house tirelessly to buy. This was her dream home. She put the wallpaper up herself. For the first time, my siblings got to have their own rooms. 

We all agreed this place felt like our home from the very beginning, and now it’s been taken. 

I see no justice in that. 

Every morning when I go to look at the news and see what the country is talking about, it’s always the same. The politicians have all started to look the same. I can barely keep up with policies passed and repealed and passed again under a different name. The same outrage without any organization to back it up. 

I am an activist, a fighter for justice, but I am finding it harder to fight. This is just a moment, and it will pass. I know. But it’s hard to see my family struggle so terribly, to watch my siblings cry because they have to leave their school and friends and home, while Cuomo and men much worse than him get to ride off into the sunset so comfortably.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kendi is currently a student at New York University and is the author of multiple award-winning poems, short stories, stage, and screenplays.