This Will Not Stop Until We Stop It

I am white.

I am white.

I AM WHITE.

I am not just white; I am really fucking white. I am the white that burns after ten minutes in the sun. I am the white that people have to constantly comment on (yes, I know I am pale, yes I know I remind you of a porcelain doll.) I am the white whose foundation is called things like Light Ivory and Fair Porcelain, and it’s only the right color when I have my “summer tan.”

I am often made aware of my skin color, because of the sun, because of your comments, because of my makeup. I remember my skin when I put on shorts and notice that my legs glow in the dark.

Yet, I have this undeniable privilege of forgetting my skin. When I walk into a room, I don’t feel like an outsider because of my skin color. I have never been or felt threatened because of my skin color. My whiteness is not a target on my back. My whiteness blends into the crowd. I am one of the masses. One of the majority. One of the privileged.

White Privilege doesn’t mean my life hasn’t had struggles. It doesn’t mean I have never been threatened. It doesn’t mean I have never been hurt. It doesn’t mean the world was handed to me.

White Privilege means my skin color hasn’t made my life more challenging. I get to forget my whiteness. I get to blend in. I get to see the people in power, the people on tv, the people around me with skin like mine. My skin color means I have to wear higher SPF, but it doesn’t mean that doors have been slammed in my face.

This past week, I have watched videos of black men being murdered. Again. I do not seek these videos out. They appear on my timelines and dashboards. Here, they say, look what we did. Look what we can do. Look what we will do again, and again, and again.

We are in the midst of global pandemic. In this country, Covid-19 is disproportionately killing black people. This isn’t really a surprise. We already know the healthcare system caters to the privileged. The wealthy. The white. It’s the same thing in this country. The wealthy are the white, the whites have the wealth.

This doesn’t mean you can’t be poor and white. White Privilege means you aren’t poor because you’re white.

Even while this pandemic is killing people, disproportionately killing black people, even now, police officers are still murdering black people.

Murdering. Lynching.

Please understand this: a cop murdering someone is a public lynching. Sharing the images and videos of it are hanging the body in the town square for everyone to see.

Cops Are Lynch Mobs.

I will not change my stance. You cannot convince me otherwise. Any argument will cause me to believe you are one of them. There is no room for discussion when people are being consistently and constantly murdered.

White Privilege is thinking there is room for discussion. White Privilege is playing Devil’s Advocate. White Privilege is saying, “not all cops / not all white people / blue lives matter / all lives matter.” White Privilege is changing the topic to be about you.

Starting a blog with I statements is White Privilege.

I am white.

I have White Privilege.

Last night, a SWAT team sprayed tear gas on protesters and a tank rolled down the streets in my city. My City. Fort Wayne. The place I was born, I was raised, I am raising my child. Last night, there was a fucking tank on Main Street to control protesters.

In Fort Wayne, the protesters who were arrested are being held without bond. In Fort Wayne, there are people with injuries because of SWAT and polices’ violence and brutality.

In case you are thinking, well, if the cops were there, it wasn’t peaceful! It was peaceful, until the cops got there. The only incident that happened at the protest that could even remotely be considered “violent” by the protesters was, are you ready for it?, two thrown water bottles.

I am reminded about a time in high school when I was thrown out of a high school football game because I was throwing popcorn. Was it childish of me? Yeah sure, but I was 15 and I wasn’t hurting anymore nor did I hit anyone. But you see, a white woman (a Karen, if you will) stood up and yelled at me. She scolded me, NO NO NO YOU DON’T THROW, like I was a toddler or a dog (not that her reaction would’ve been appropriate if I had been a toddler or a dog), instead of a teenager being dumb. She insisted that a security guard come and escort me out of the stadium.

In response to throwing popcorn, I was yelled at and then escorted out by a man with a gun.

Someone threw a water bottle (at a person in full body armor), and in response, the national guard brought a tank.

I know the situations are completely different. No one was hurt in my story. I just didn’t get to see the game with my friends. Yet, I can’t help but think of that woman yelling at me. Ooooh man, you’ve done it now! You’ve thrown something harmless at a person who was not harmed!

I bet her husband was one of the SWAT who sprayed people complying in the face with tear gas without warning. I bet her brother was a police officer who beat a man into the ground, until he was bloody and unconscious. I bet her son was the national guard with a tank, running down innocents. I bet she’s still yelling at teenagers, asking for managers, demanding to get her hair cut.

That’s White Privilege. The antagonizer. Throwing people out of events without warning, spraying tear gas without warning.

I want you to picture the stadium stands I was sitting in. I want you to picture how many other adults were in those stands, who were sitting by while a stranger verbally attacked a minor. Sure, it wasn’t a big deal, but I would bet anything that the same adults who let me be removed from my friends, my safety network, are the same adults who stand by while people are being murdered.

Silence is complacency. Complacency is agreement. Doing nothing is taking the side of the oppressor.

All of those silent adults agreed that I should be removed from the safe space with people who knew me and put into a situation where I had to stand outside a stadium, surrounded by people I didn’t know, and try to call my parents to come get me. This was before cellphones were just everywhere, by the way. I had a phone, yeah, but it was block Nokia that didn’t work well.

White Privilege is likely what kept me safe. What would those white adults have done if I was black? After I was separated from my group in a crowded space, so many things could’ve gone wrong to me, a teenage girl, but nothing happened. I am grateful. My skin color likely protected me from harm. That is White Privilege.

Who are you? What are you doing?

I’m not asking what you’re posting or sharing. I’m not asking if you use hashtags or reblog pretty portraits of the murdered.

I’m asking what you are doing.

I know I’m not doing enough. I don’t know how to do enough. There is no such thing as enough until this stops. But I’m trying. I will keep shouting, keep sharing, keep writing, hoping that someone will listen to me, someone will join me. I will sign petitions, I will email the government. I can’t donate money, I have none. I can’t go to protests, I have a small child to care for.

And before you call judgement on the protesters or the people who die at the hands of cops, before you say, “if they had listened / been peaceful, it wouldn’t have happened!” Look for the truth.

Here’s the truth I know: across the nation right now, people are hurting at the hands of law enforcement. The violence is started by the police officers. The SWAT. The National Guard. Today, I am looking through my Facebook and seeing the evidence of it. Personal evidence. The friends who are hurting. The friends whose friends are in jail, in the hospital, hurting and scared.

I know that in my city, in Fort Wayne, the police and SWAT handled a peaceful protest by:

-blocking traffic to allow protesters onto the streets then attacked them shortly after for being in the street

-Tackling a pregnant woman

-Knowingly dispensing tear gas in the vicinity of an infant

-Intentionally using tear gas on crowds that were known to contain pregnant women and children

-Pepper spraying a child of about 4 or 5 years of age

-Forcing people into tear gas

-Failing to provide help for seriously wounded individuals

-Shooting rubber bullets at people trying to get away from tear gas

-Throwing tear gas at people running away

-The use of concussion grenades because people are not leaving public sidewalks

-Using pepper spray on people on sidewalks

-Beating people before arresting them

I know this has to stop.

I know I am white, and I have White Privilege. And I need to do more.

And I know you need to do more. What are you doing?

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(taken from Facebook)

I have privilege as a white person because I can do all of these things without thinking twice:

I can go birding (#ChristianCooper)

I can go jogging (#AmaudArbery)

I can relax in the comfort of my own home (#BothamJean and #AtatianaJefferson)

I can ask for help after being in a car crash (#JonathanFerrell and #RenishaMcBride)

I can have a cellphone (#StephonClark)

I can leave a party to get to safety (#JordanEdwards)

I can play loud music (#JordanDavis)

I can sell CDs (#AltonSterling)

I can sleep (#AiyanaJones)

I can walk from the corner store (#MikeBrown)

I can play cops and robbers (#TamirRice)

I can go to church (#Charleston9)

I can walk home with Skittles (#TrayvonMartin)

I can hold a hair brush while leaving my own bachelor party (#SeanBell)

I can party on New Years (#OscarGrant)

I can get a normal traffic ticket (#SandraBland)

I can lawfully carry a weapon (#PhilandoCastile)

I can break down on a public road with car problems (#CoreyJones)

I can shop at Walmart (#JohnCrawford)

I can have a disabled vehicle (#TerrenceCrutcher)

I can read a book in my own car (#KeithScott)

I can be a 10yr old walking with our grandfather (#CliffordGlover)

I can decorate for a party (#ClaudeReese)

I can ask a cop a question (#RandyEvans)

I can cash a check in peace (#YvonneSmallwood)

I can take out my wallet (#AmadouDiallo)

I can run (#WalterScott)

I can breathe (#EricGarner)

I can live (#FreddieGray)

I CAN BE ARRESTED WITHOUT THE FEAR OF BEING MURDERED (#GeorgeFloyd)

White privilege is real. Educate yourself and practice unlearning what years and systemic racism has indoctrinated in you.

#BlackLivesMatter

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How many more lives will it take before you care?

https://newsone.com/playlist/black-men-boy-who-were-killed-by-police/item/11/