A Moment, If You Please

By now, most of you are aware of the horrific events that occurred over the weekend in Virginia.

To say that I condemn the violence is an understatement. Any rational person should. But as we've seen, we're not dealing with rational people.

I could spend countless hours trying to even begin to describe the horrors, hate, and violence that people of color face in this country. But those are not my stories to tell. They need to be heard from the people who have actually experienced it.

What I AM going to do, though, is shut the fuck up for a moment.

Because we've failed hard, white people. We've talked over, trivialized, and blatantly ignored what people of color have been warning us about for literal decades.

We allowed an atmosphere of hate, intolerance, and violence to breed in our country. We've done nothing to stop it. In fact, we've advanced it.

Because we were frightened. Because we didn't care enough. Because we didn't want to rock the boat. Because that doesn't happen in my neighborhood. It's always somewhere else that has to deal with that.

And look what happened.

THERE ARE LITERALLY NAZIS, KLANSMEN, AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS MARCHING OPENLY IN OUR STREETS!

Not in hoods to protect their identities. Not gathering in the darkest corners of the internet, only breeding their hate amongst themselves.

No, they're walking openly, without fear, without reproach, all across this country.

This is no longer just a sordid stain in our history books of yesteryear. Some horrendous tale that you learn about in school.

This is 2017.

This needs to stop. But that isn't going to be accomplished if we white people continue to sit around with our heads up our own collective asses, hoping really hard that the problems will just go away.

It's time to stop pretending that we're above it all and actually listen to what the PEOPLE ACTUALLY MARGINALIZED have to say.

So, I'm here and I'm listening.

Tell me what I can do to help. Educate me. Please help me to understand so I can do better going forward.

And I'll do my best to use what privileges I have to advance your cause and fight for true equality in this world.

"You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." 
- Shirley Chisholm, First Elected Black Congresswoman