With Liberty & Justice for All.

I love being white.

I love it simply because my life is easier, and to use a currently popular word, privileged.

I do not live in fear of police officers. When I see lights behind me, I am stressed out because I don’t want to pay a ticket- not because I might be ____ . (Enter your own word for the various fates possible here). I can't stop reading the story of Sandra Bland. After everything that has happened I am still in disbelief that this is happening in America in 2015. 

I can hail a taxicab anywhere I want any time of day or not. I am not seen as a threat due to centuries of stereotypes. No one has ever covered their face and hung my relatives from a tree. No one mocks my accent- because I don’t have one. No one calls me slur words. My history is front and present in textbooks. No gaps are left out because they’re just too ugly for children to witness.

I worry about my brother every single day. He is 21. He is tall and when it is cold out, will walk around wearing a hoodie. He would argue with an authority figure when he believes they are out of line. He has broken the law and dealt with the consequences already in his young life. He is tall, he is strong, he has tattoos. I worry constantly about him getting into a car with someone who has been drinking- or drinking and driving himself. I worry about him not applying himself as well as he could. I worry that he is irresponsible with his money and his time.

I don’t ever worry for one single moment of my life that he is going to be attacked by someone (a cop)- especially when he isn’t doing anything wrong. It just doesn’t cross my mind as a worry. Because he is white and the odds of that happening are so much less- just because he is white.

I see young black boys in my store, on the train, in the bodegas, on the streets- they could all be my brother. But they are black and that is all that separates them. And so while my mother prays her son starts seriously thinking of his future career, their mothers pray their sons make it home alive tonight.

I can’t get on the Internet, pick up a paper, turn on the TV, or listen to the radio without hearing that someone who is a minority has been wrongly accused/attacked/shot by a white figure, often a police officer. I don’t know if the media attraction is making this more commonplace but it is like the goddamn 60s in Mississippi all over again!

So here I am. I am white. I am culturally recognized as a middle class white educated young woman. I am safe from authority figures going wild on me because I put my hand in my pocket and they thought I had a gun.

There is a reason that the phrase white privilege exists. 

BECAUSE I AM WHITE, LIFE WILL ALWAYS BE EASIER FOR ME.

My children’s lives will be better than the lives of the children born by POC.

I am so so sad that this is the case, but it is the truth. Let’s stop hiding from the truth.

Mother’s are burying their young sons too often. Police officers are committing crimes and nothing is happening! And we (white people) can't wait for pumpkin flavors to be back on the shelves in a few months. Is the value of our skin greater than the value of theirs?

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?” - Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman”

This is the same story we have been telling again and again. It is our job to protect each other from ourselves. Why are we failing so miserably? Why are our souls and hearts so calloused? Who raised us!? Who taught us to forgo the good Samaritan and watch black boys bleed out on the ground as we continue onto yoga and coffee.

"There are two types of evil in this world: those who do evil stuff and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t try to stop it." (What good would this be without a Mean Girls quote?)

Which one are you?

Will you hide behind the cowardice of a flag and not stand up for some who grew up under the same flag receiving a different treatment in life than you? Will you stand beside your religion and say that if they had just not stolen from that convenience store / sold those illegal cigarettes/ gotten rowdy on the train they would be fine.

Because here is the difference. Many many many people do those things. Do they deserve to die for them?

So which person are you? Do you do evil things- or do you just sit by and watch them happen with silence?

I think the second person is the more evil- and I believe that is the umbrella we all fall under more often. Grow a fucking backbone and don’t stand for the injustice anymore. Support black lives. Support the justice of those who lose their lives. Do not fall under the guise of the falseness of how a man in uniform upholds the law to the best extent. How many more young (black) lives need to be lost before someone says enough is enough.

If you won’t, I will.

Enough is enough.

And my voice is loud. My voice is loud because it is a white voice. The oppressed can scream until their vocal chords bleed, but if their voices hold no clout, if no one hears them, it is moot.

But my voice is not oppressed. Someone might listen. But my voice is one voice. And it won’t get very far. But what if you add yours. And he adds his. And she adds hers; isn’t that how we change the world?

Shylock: “To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,

it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and

hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,

mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my

bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine

enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath

not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with

the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject

to the same diseases, healed by the same means,

warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as

a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?

if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison

us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not

revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will

resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian

wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by

Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you

teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I

will better the instruction.” - The Merchant of Venice Act 3 Scene 1

By no means was Shylock the most upstanding human in literary history- but that does not invalidate the points he makes in this scene. Historically, for whatever reason, majority of the world has hated the Jews. And Shylock bore the brunt of this in The Merchant of Venice. But why? Because he is a Jew? Is that the crime of his life, is this what will condemn him and lead him to his death?

If you are a man and you see a woman being attacked/harassed/drugged by another man it is your obligation to help her. You hold the position of privilege.  If you are an authority figure and for some godforsaken reason feel that a teenager is “seducing” you, it is your obligation to get the fuck out of that situation. You are the adult; you hold the position of privilege

Privilege is a circle. We each own it from time to time. It is power. And with great power comes great responsibility. Uncle Ben taught us all that.

Black lives matter.

Be on the right side of history.

Stand up for what is right or sit the fuck down and shut up- you’re getting in my way.