Last week, I felt bad after this girl agreed with Tomi Lahren who spoke out against Jesse Williams' speech and Black Lives Matter. She said that her father was a cop and that she feels like cops are being cast as bad guys and that she feels attacked for being white. I pointed out to her the difference between what she considers racist and stereotyping and what it actually is. I felt bad afterwards because I felt like I may have hurt her feelings for telling her not to hurt mine. Everyone keeps saying that nowadays people gets so offended lately over everything and that everybody is so sensitive, but are we really? Or are we just wanting people to be nice to each other.
I see it all the time. The [insert minority here] opinion about race. We always have to confirm or deny the existence of racism, the existence of our pain. We have to fight to have space in this world. We have to feel sorry for wanting space in this world. We have to apologize for taking up too much space in this world. I just want the American Dream. I don't want the white picket fence. I want what the Constitution calls inalienable rights to US citizens. I want the right to due process. I want US citizens to have their day in court instead of being shot down like animals in the streets. I want people to be called by their name instead of the N word or a thug. I want to be treated as human, and I believe everyone else wants the same.
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I am so tired of writing articles about hurting, about telling other people that I'm hurting, about apologizing for my hurt. I'm tired. I shouldn't have to do this. If someone tells you that they're hurting, you shouldn't make them educate you in order for you to empathize or believe them. You should be a decent human being and listen. Act. I shouldn't have to waste my mental and emotional energy to educate someone who is capable of learning the history of the United States. People who have easy access to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave or Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Hell, read How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Read something. Listen. Learn something because American history is more than just white people. Learn that. Learn that life is not always black and white. That there are no clear cut answers. Life has nuance and complexity and so do the dynamics between cops and black people. Life is filled with uncertainty and grey matter. Learn that. Learn something before you say something. Come at me when a 10 page paper on the history of structural racism with a works cited page filled with peer-reviewed scholarly academic sources because I am tired of begging you to revise. I'm tired of feeling like it's my job to give white people a free education when my ancestors already gave them enough free labor.
The fourth of July weekend just past, and I, like so many other US citizens, am not free. I don't have the same rights as my white boyfriend. God forbid if I wanted to carry out my 2nd amendment right, I too, could get shot down like Tamir Rice in an open-carry state. God forbid, if I'm accused of robbing a grocery store. I, too, could get shot down in the street because I could possibly be a criminal like Michael Brown. The right to due process isn't allowed for black people. The guns in the hands of cops decide our fates not a jury of our peers. Oh, and God forbid if I want my first amendment right. The right to press or free speech. The right to say that my life matters as much as the next person. The truth is right now in the United States in the country, it doesn't. In the land of the free and the home of the brave live a bunch of mentally-enslaved and cowardly people, and I refuse to educate you to set you free.
