At a time like this, you may want to console every black person around you, you may want to rant on Facebook about how enraged you are, or you may even want to just give up in this seemingly never ending fight with the United States’ system. Whatever the case may be, I thank you for trying your best to make a change. I will never know what it’s like to actively try to destroy a system that favors you, but your courage is appreciated. So again, I thank you for choosing to help the victims of America’s great institutionalized racism. I only wish the need to be thanked could be reversed, into just an expectation of a decent human being.
After hearing about the latest shooting of another black man, Charles Kinsey, you are tired. Protest after protest that you attended, another black man was still killed by the American police system. But what white allies often fail to acknowledge, is that this pain that accompanies another black death is a pain that is constant and never ending in black communities. Black people have had a dialogue about this for so long, we have even adapted our lifestyle in order to survive. While your frustration is something new and quite surface level. I have heard white people say, “We haven’t talked about race like this since Trayvon Martin!” that right there, is privilege. Black parents have had to change their ‘birds and bees’ talk to their tween to ‘how to act around police’. We have acquired literal survival skills. Situations where white allies make numerous social media statuses and fail to take action is to some extent useless. You have privilege, and you need to use it to make an actual change. And when compared to you, we are obviously on very different levels and your privilege is a defining factor of that.
For these reasons, you must understand our point of view and that sometimes the best thing a white ally can do, is just to be quiet and listen. Trust me, we don’t necessarily need your input at fragile times like these. And often times, your opinion isn’t generally needed. We do acknowledge your accompanied disappointment with the system, but for us, it can be quite awkward having a talk about our disregard towards the police system, while your dad or uncle could be a police officer that we ultimately fear. We don’t want it to be personal because it’s bigger than that. This issue at hand is systematic and institutional and at times something we need to discuss within our spaces. White intrusion into these dialogues only creates hostility and discomfort. But when you are at your family dinner and your parent calls us thugs, please speak up because that right there, is the perfect time to use your knowledge. Much of being an ally within the Black Lives Matter movement, is to stick up for us within your own race. When you are hanging out with a group of all white people or at a family function, there and then is to use your voice and your privilege, because you will be heard.
The truth of the matter is that at times like this our anger, our pain, and our fear are different from yours. We can never just wake up one day and say, “Hey! Standing up for black issues is tiring, I’m just going to live my life with no regard and at great ease too.”. Our skin is nonnegotiable. We have been paved with the greatnesses and the challenges of being black in America. I have been forced to come to terms with living in a country that was built on the backs of my ancestors, founded on the lynchings of my family, and supported by the criminalization of my people. My pain can never equate to your anger. That pain has fueled a state of fear of living in my own body. And as an ally, you will never have to go through that. So please, refrain from boasting about your life changing attendance in your local Black Lives Matter rally, intruding on safe spaces and conversations, and posting photos of you leading the chants in a protest. No matter how invested you get with being anti- racist, nothing compares to life as a black person.
