Read the rest: "An Open Letter to People of Color: Please do not trust white people. Every single one of us is racist, itâs something we were born and raised into, we were and are consistently indoctrinated into white supremacy. Indifference and apathy towards systemic racism and itâs horrific results is not just more comfortable, it is incentivized; we are actively rewarded by white supremacy in itâs many forms for ignoring people of color and their cries for injustice. Our bones are riddled with it, itâs everywhere. We were taught the the history of our nation through textbooks written by white men with a vested interest in how the story was and is being told. So we think that MLK Jr is the patron saint of polite black folks (to be invoked against the angry ones), peanut butter is the extent of black excellence, and according to the newest textbooks, slaves were just unpaid interns. We were brought up being given medicine designed for us by white men, men who historically tortured black women and murdered black babies to found gynecology, men who performed surgeries on black people without any anesthesia and no precautions because it was believe that black people can not feel pain. And you wonder why we do not sympathize when black children are gunned down by police? Nothing stopped, the framework of systemic racism just keeps getting dressed differently, yesterdayâs fire hoses and attack dogs are todayâs cultural appropriation, tone policing and respectability politics. We are the ones who committed genocide, stole this land, and now, generations later, think itâs cool to dress up like the folks we massacred. Weâre the ones making fun of people who canât speak âperfectâ English, weâre the ones whoâve come up with every single racial slur used in this country. Weâre so much more concerned about you questioning us, telling us no or calling us out than we are what youâre actually experiencing at our hands. We will spent countless hours just poking at you, trolling you just to prove youâre this less intellectual, overly emotional animal, to get you to fail a standard we set for you without ever clueing you in on it. We are the ones who built this country on the blood, the bodies and the backs of people of color and then built Mt Rushmore, statues, monuments to white men. We rigged the economy, the government and the schools, created the ghettos, set you up for failure and then we blame you for your not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. We are still making you defend yourselves, over and over ad infinitum. We make you defend your personhood, your autonomy, your agency, your decency, your humanity because when you keep minorities on the defensive, when you keep them explaining who they are and justifying their right to life â nothing real ever gets done. Even though Iâm queer, even though Iâm trans, I still get to sit in the âWhites Onlyâ section and I have heard what gets said and Iâm begging you, please donât trust us." Thought?
