I am angry.
I've been angry since I watched the video of Alton Sterling's murder, three days ago. And then I watched the video of Philando Castile's murder. And then I heard on the radio about the deaths of the five police officers in Dallas.
"I thought we were done with this," I thought to myself. "I thought this had blown over."
But the more I read, the more I spoke out, the more I dealt with racist comments on social media, the more my anger swelled in my gut, it hit me: police brutality and racial injustice never went away. I had been following the conversation since Trayvon Martin, but the several months of media silence in between events had deceived me. I had been deceived by my own white privilege.
Just because I don't hear about it through the media doesn't mean it isn't still going on.
Because I am white, I have the privilege of a bubble. In this bubble, I have never known what it's like to be targeted, to have my intelligence, my work ethic, my citizenship status, my abilities, my family life judged and labelled because of the color of my skin. I have never had my voice overridden, my perspective assumed or discredited, my every action scrutinized and used as a representation of my entire race because of my whiteness.
I have not had a case, a record built up against me since I was born. I was not born a certain color and then accused of "playing the race card" for reclaiming it as part of my identity.
Because I am white, it is a choice for me to be aware or to remain ignorant. To click the headlines (on multiple news sources) or to scroll past. To watch the graphic videos or to brush them off. To speak up and risk angering fellow white people or to continue posting cat videos on Facebook and stay neutral.
But there is no neutrality. In times of murder, of injustice, of institutionalized and actualized racism, of chaos, there is no neutrality. We are in those times. We never left them.
Where is the justice? Where is the accountability? Where is the security? Where is the democracy?
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor." – Desmond Tutu
