Dear fellow white people...

Dear Fellow White People,

 

Stop. Please stop. Please. 

 

Every time you start shit like #notallwhitepeople, or co-opt #blacklivesmatter and change it to #alllivesmatter you are being part of the problem.

 

#blacklivesmatters does not seek to claim that only black lives matter. It challenges the notion, which is present in our culture, that black lives specifically don't matter or at the very least matter significantly less. All volcanoes are mountains not all mountains are volcanoes. When we discuss volcanoes and the significant properties of their experience we aren't discounting other mountains. You're cool too mountains, chill the fuck out and stop trying to steal volcano's thunder. White people, stop trying to co-opt everyone's shit. All you are doing is reaffirming that the hashtag #blacklivesmatter is necessary and that you have some serious white guilt you need to work through. Be a part of the solution not the problem. Rather than trying to own some bullshit hashtag like #alllives why don't you dedicate your 140 characters to discussing systemic racism and showing real solidarity with this movement. You don't deserve a high five for not being racist.

For everyone who keeps saying racism doesn't exist anymore, I going to need you to sit down and shut up. That you think racism doesn't exist means you a.) don't have any social media at all where people are tossing out the N word like candy on Halloween and b.) don't have an understanding of the lasting impacts of our history and that you have likely been privileged enough to never experience racism. Not experiencing something firsthand and something not existing all together are not the same thing. 

 

I encourage everyone to read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the U.S. to gain a better understanding of how racism continually adapts within the cultural environment. The abolishment of slavery lead to Jim Crow which lead to the war on drugs and the modern prison system. It hasn't stopped, it has evolved. By Darwin's standards, racism is an incredibly fit organism that only becomes more stealth with time. 

And for everyone who says this isn't a race issue, this is a "don't resist arrest issue" I have to just shake my head. There are a million cops out there who don't feel the need to use excessive first or unauthorized restraining techniques (such as an illegal chokehold) and you are insulting their integrity and the whole concept behind "protect and serve" by sanctifying these actions. Like politicians, the police are given their power by the people and it is our responsibility to hold them accountable.

So please own your shit and think before you speak. Figure out what it takes to be an ally and then make your actions reflect your priorities.

I don't entirely blame individuals for their ignorance because we have a culture and educational system that seems to give the shallow, and more comfortable version of our history. But I hate to break it to you, slavery only ended about 150 years ago, which means there are people alive today whose parents were slaves. This is not some terrible thing from our past, this is very much impacting our current culture. I am not asking you to feel guilty about it, though you definitely should not feel good, but I am asking you to own that knowledge and seek to understand the lasting impacts. My mind was blown with every cross cultural psychology and feminist theory class that I took in college because I was exposed to realities outside of my own.

 

At the very least stop, for a moment to have compassion for others. Recognize that just because you have not seen or experienced something first hand doesnot mean it isn't happening. Put yourself in someone else's shoes and think about what a day in their life must be like. 

 

Be an ally.