Let me vent? I am so tired of race. I am so tired of all these racially charged articles despite their good intentions, ill-formed arguments, and their relatability all over my Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I am so tired of telling white acquaintances what it feels like. I am so tired of being told it doesn’t exist. I am so tired of “adults” voluntarily shoving fingers in their ears. I am so tired of this country and its constant perpetuation of stupid, mindless things to keep us distracted and sedated. I am just so tired of being black. So. Tired. This is totally normal actually. You could give a man a heart attack with the amount of cortisol that oozes through my body on a daily basis…and I have a GOOD life, hmph. This is basically how I feel—>
First, there is this bold kid who decides to be that white guy who stands up for being ‘that white guy’ unapologetically only to be schooled by the unprivileged and rejected from white guys due to his unorganized arguments and the who-had-it-worse game that should NEVER be played. Sir, sit down and reassess your private high school, Ivy league life that we know you had to jump through less hoops to get despite your hard work. That is the point. Duh. Second, there is this woman who decides to make breeding and rape…entertaining? Laughable? Funny to white people? No ma’am, do not reduce Lupita Nyong’o’s achievement as People magazine’s most beautiful (a feat nearly impossible for someone darker than a brown paper bag) only to use her extremely realistic and honest Oscar winning role as a slave master’s mistress only to boast about how you could breed athletes-the new, subtle form of slavery. *Cough* Sterling *Cough* No surprise there. Ma’am, you need to go somewhere and sit down. Take a seat. BYE FELICIA. Actually, this is really sad that the second black woman introduced on SNL this year had to be a stereotype like this, but I digress…
Third, apparently black people are cowards. I am not even going to hyperlink the retorts and rebuttals. That’s just too much for one day. Good grief. We just can’t handle anything these days without pointing fingers, huh? “We” meaning Americans. “We” meaning us. Us hooligans. Our childish selves. Americans don’t know what to do and don’t know how to fix things. Do Americans actually want to fix things? Who knows. All I know is that everyone is angry, no one wants to be the bad guy racist when they are unintentionally, and many of those who don’t feel it want to bury it or diminish the value, advances and set backs this country has had due to its entrenched racism and prejudice.
Things are institutionalized. It is the same thing I see when the stats come out for graduate school, law school and medical school. In medicine there are more black women doctors/applicants/matriculants than black male counterparts. Why? Institutionalized racism and bad circumstances propagated through ignorance, lack of access and lack of positive exposure. There is enough blame to go around, but that isn’t the issue. Blaming is just fun and easy to do and takes the responsibility and guilt (for lack of a better word) off you, right? So blame is beside the point. There is only what IS and what IS present is an unequal opportunity ladder that hovers over a landing where those of color can’t even get to climb the ladder because it is too high above ground to begin with. I can say this a multitude of ways until I am “blue” in the face.We know what it should be, but can’t agree on what it already is. Those who are white need to understand what IS as much as those who are not because we throw around whatever someone else has put in our hands, whatever someone else has said is the problem without thinking. So no, we aren’t cowards. We aren’t self righteous. We are confused and hurt. We are hurt because we are born in or out of privilege and don’t know how to deal with it when we see the result. I don’t have any remedy for this madness besides broad, sweeping actions like vote, be aware, and read ALL angles…but…VOTE, EDUCATE YOURSELF, BE CRITICAL, THINK, ACT, and throw away the excessive pride that impedes progress. A little pride goes a long way. Ugh, I know. That sounds like effort. Yuck.