Dear White Followers,
Where have you been? I feel like I haven't heard from many of you in a while. Your digital presence on my Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and Facebook feeds seem almost nonexistent. But excuse me, maybe I have just been overlooking you. I believe that your posts have been drowned out by my friends' posts in the black community, my friends who have dedicated their time on social media to bring awareness to recent events caused by police brutality. If I l meticulously look for you on Twitter, I can find a few of you still posting about things you would post about on any other day, whether you're subtweeting about the guy who screwed you and your friends over, sharing a vague, shallow life lesson that all of you seem to identify with, or if I look closely enough, or calling your followers to pray in such a tragic time.
Now, let me be clear; I have no problem with praying. In fact, I think it's what we all should do: Pray for our whole country. We should pray for our leaders who have to the power to make change happen. We should pray that civilians interact peacefully with one another. We should pray that no one abuses their rights or power — civilian or government official.
However, praying is just the first step, and sadly most of the time, it's the only step you take, leaving the black community believing that you're not with us. Maybe you're not.
Maybe you are silent because you actually don't agree with the Black Lives Matter movement and would rather not ruffle any feathers.
Maybe you are silent because you believe that instead, we should be proclaiming, "All lives matter," in turn, not showing sympathy for your black brothers and sisters who have been shown time and time again by this country that our lives aren't worth much to you.
Our culture, however, is worth more than us. You can see it when some of you claim token black friends to not be perceived as racist. You can see it when some of you don't have a problem with freely saying the "n word" in your Instagram captions and Snapchats. You can see it when some of you travel to an African country or really urban part of town and take a few pictures with the black kids to seem like you played the role of white savior for the day. You can see it when some of you take vacations and give yourself cornrows, but come back to your hometown and call black girls sporting the same style "ghetto." You can see it when some of you claim to be blacker than actual black people because you've (embarrassingly) tried to adopt a cringeworthy blaccent. You can see it when white girls date black boys to prove they're "down," but fail to speak out in times like this.
And all of this is your privilege. For years, people who look like you have colonized countries they deemed contain savages, transforming and taking elements of culture. You've grown up (perhaps unconsciously) believing that white people brought us all together, saving us from slavery and bringing us to the free world where we all respect and love each other for our differences. While that may sound ideal, it's not what people of color, specifically the black community, have been feeling lately.
Some of you take small pieces of our culture and claim it as your own, not seeing that is a sign of disrespect. Some of you get offended for getting called out on this, claiming that we're just too sensitive. The reason we are so "sensitive" is because, like the saying goes, "No one wants to be black when it's time to be black."
As a black woman, I would have felt strange not speaking about what's been going on in this country. Not only because I believe it's the right thing to do, but also because this all affects me. I could become a hashtag. My mom could become a hashtag. My dad could become a hashtag. Any black member of my family or friend could become a hashtag. But maybe, if I say it like that, that's too comforting for you to read. If I say, "Any black person could unjustly die at the hands of a police officer," will it become real enough for you to show public support for us then? I understand that you don't know how it feels to be anxious of a trigger happy officer pulling you over and shooting you even after you comply (note that this is another one of your privileges) but just know this:
Know that your silence is perceived as anti-black. Know that your silence does not prove that all lives matter. Know that if you turned your silence into words of support for Black Lives Matter that it makes all the difference. We need you behind us. Until we stop seeing so many police brutality stories in the media, the black community is not going to believe that they are a part of "All Lives Matter."
But maybe you're not silent.
Maybe you identify with the part of Facebook who swears by Tomi Lahren's Final Thoughts. For you, all I have is this quote by activist and actor Jesse Williams because I wouldn't be able to say this any better:
"And let's get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote- the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That's not our job, alright- stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down."
Know that neither I, nor does anyone in the black community, have time to defend or explain the movement to people whose only goal is to tear it down.
Maybe you identify with the part of Facebook who proclaims "Blue lives matter," and are just now becoming a part of the police brutality conversation because police are now being killed.
Know that this is not what the Black Lives Matter movement stands for. The black community has seen so many publicized deaths happen over the last two years (You could argue that it's been happening longer, but I say three because I believe police brutality gained media attention in Ferguson in 2014) that our goal is definitely not more violence. The people a part of the Black Lives Matter movement do not claim radicals who target police officers so do not put us all in the same generalized boat when you hear news of an officer dying. It's like when a white male who claims to be a Christian causes another mass shooting, and you're all quick to say that he does not represent you.
We know that not every police officer is bad, but when other police officers fail to condemn their peers in uniform, their silence is seen as acceptance of what’s going on around them.
Hot97 radio host Peter Rosenberg said it bluntly when talking to a police officer on the air:
“This is the problem I have with police officers. No disrespect to you. Y’all don’t ever want to point at someone else and say, ‘You can’t do your job well!’ I could tell you right now if I heard a radio personality get on the air do something irresponsible, I’d say, ‘That’s a bad radio personality! He does a bad job.’ Police officers never want to say when y’all do a bad job so that’s the reason the public thinks all of you are bad. Because you won’t ever call someone out and say, ‘They murdered someone in cold blood. It happened again,' and until you guys start taking responsibility for your own, people on the street are going to be upset instead. So how about y’all lead the movement instead? How about instead of people rioting, police officers get out in front of it themselves, and you guys are the first ones at the front lines? That’s what should happen.”
Believe me, we want to trust the men and women who sacrifice their lives to keep our communities safe, but we need accountability and consequences for those who have committed crimes themselves.
Until you get out of your comfort zone, until you do more than pray, until you publicly say, “Black lives matter,” until you realize that saying that doesn’t mean that other lives don’t, until you stop criticizing the movement, and until you start a dialogue with your family and friends with the goal of gaining sympathy and calling them to action, (because whether you realize it or not, people naturally look to white people for what to do next) change cannot happen.
We need to diversify this movement. We need people of every race's support. The longer it takes for people to join the movement, the more frequently situations that cause us to have uncomfortable conversations like this will happen.
If you believe so greatly in the American dream, if you believe so greatly that we are all equal, then fight for us.
