I stand in a precarious spot. A middle ground, where I have a voice but do not know how to use it.
I am White. I am Male. I have lived a life of relative privilege.
Yet I see injustice. I see the pain of Black brothers and sisters. I have first-handedly witnessed the micro-aggressions and even the out right racism shown against them. I want to scream in rage towards people's outright hatred and smash the well-meaning ignorance that plagues many people I call 'friend' in their faces.
But sometimes I am a pawn in the game. Sometimes, I don't stand up when I should. Sometimes, I let the little things slip by.
Why is it White folk only pay attention when they fear they have something to lose or until it can no longer be ignored?! Willing to turn our backs to the troubles of our fellow humans until there is a corpse lying on our doorstep!
I am undone. Trying to put it all together, where do I fit into this mess. I woke up this morning White. I will never know what it means to feel the weight of the scientifically simple, genetic disposition to a higher count of melanin. The one that socially bears the weight of millennia of oppression.
I watch fat, wind-bagged old men say there is no Institutional Racism. What more blatant example is there then a Black Commander in Chief too caught up in the middle ground to say much else then there "are good people on all sides of this debate" and "respect the rule of law"!? Of course there are well-meaning people on the side of white supremacy, thats the banality of Evil -- the Devil wears the prettiest, most appealing of smiles.
I witness the challenge my friends have born trying to narrate racial rage, racial pain, racial fear, in the hopes that White folks with understand. I don't know that burden first hand but I've seen the resentment when it turns up in failure. I feel the anger that they have to do it in the first place!
I am guilty. Of times of ignorance, inaction, and anger, so much anger. Especially, towards the faith system I once believed in so much. How can a group of people who proclaim to be so rooted in LOVE be so grounded in things that are so not LOVE. Teachings that are so far from the truth and turn a blind eye if not promote so many awful things; sexism, homophobia, intolerance of other belief systems, economic disparity and greed, military atrocities just to name a few. When will people learn that their political party promotes nothing to do with their GOD?
I am saddened that I have felt joy at the thought of one day seeing the faces of some people who believed themselves to be so rooted in the name Jesus have his back turned on them, even if I am one to join them.
I have censored myself for so long. Unwilling to set a flame to burn against me, especially if I don't feel I have as strong an argument to throw water back on it. What honour or dignity is left in that? I can't stay quiet any longer for fear of man. I can no longer silently hear people scoff "Ha, that's a fly-over continent.", about a place that has taken so much of my heart....
My mind wants peace but my heart wants justice. Yet... "How can we obey the 'rule of law' when it holds its foot against our neck while pleading with us to affirm the path to our own destruction? Humans can only be kicked in the stomach for so long, bullied for so long before one day they stagger to their feet, and you see reflected back at you, the results of your own unresolved monstrousness."
I do not know they answer. All I can see is dark days ahead if we remain complacent and inactive.
