This week I had a horrible encounter with a fellow Jonrya shipper who had been a dear friend of mine and happened to be the person gifting me for secret santa.
I had reblogged this post earlier on Wednesday:
Don’t coddle white people’s feeling about race. Don’t change your behavior to appease them, hoping that’ll accept you. Don’t degrade or mock your race so white people will like you. Don’t allow yourself to be their token friend.
Children of color are not protected from racism, they aren’t given that privilege of being coddled. White people don’t need it either. White people won’t truly accept you the way you hope they will. They’ll tokenize and use you against other people of your race.
I honestly didn’t think that this post was offensive or meant to be offensive towards all caucasian people. This post was supposed to be an advice post for people of color.
My former friend messaged me angrily and told me that she felt like the post was completely wrong. I told her that while I respected her opinion, I didn’t disagree with the post, because as a person of color, I have many times been the token friend and discriminated against. After I told her that I was discriminated against, she responded to me with a “well, whatever,” and completely dismissed my feelings and experiences. I went so far as to tell her “by the way, you have never made me feel like a token friend and I don’t mean to offend you at all.” She continued to ignore me.
Another fellow Jonrya shipper (a poc) messaged her to ask her why she said these things to me and she was not only rude to this shipper, but refused to apologize to us and unfollowed us. She claimed that I was immature for ignoring her gift and not messaging her directly.
My question is, why would I continue to message someone who dismissed me when I said “I was discriminated against” with a “well, whatever?” Why would I message someone who tells my friend “I won’t apologize or talk to her because I’m absolutely right about this and she hasn’t messaged me first.”
My parents raised me with manners. I will always accept and thank people for gifts, but I refuse to thank someone for a gift when I feel like that person is dismissing the experiences I’ve had with racism.
I am not going to apologize, as a poc, for reblogging a post that discusses the racism that I’ve experienced for the color of my skin, to a person who the post had nothing to do with. Nor should I have to.
I don’t mean to turn secret santa into an ugly thing. I really did not want to write this post, but I spent so much time organizing this event for us, just to have it be completely ruined for myself.
Unless you are a poc, you should not be speaking on the racism that we encounter. You should not be trying to silence us when we vocalize our experiences. That is not okay.
I just want to say thank you to @justhappydays @buttercuparry @shm00dz @jonryatrash
Thank you all for listening to me and supporting me. I love each of you so much and am honored to have you guys as my family <3.
