WHAT IS GOING ON IN YOUR BRAIN?!

The ignorance, the selfishness, the plain inability to be empathetic and understanding. If you don’t understand the movement, the sentiment, behind Black Lives Matter you are not fit to involve yourself in any conversations about it. Your opinion isn’t helping. You’re not convincing anyone with your inept arguments. The only thing you are doing is expressing your intense disapproval of equality and progress. When you say, “All Lives Matter,” you’re neglecting a history of blatant violence, current systemic racism, and ignoring a plea to society for the equal treatment of black lives. I’m not sure how may times we have to say, Black Lives Matter does NOT mean, nobody else’s lives matter. What it means is there has been an unbalanced injustice in the black community, and this statement is calling attention to it. It doesn’t literally mean ONLY BLACK LIVES MATTER. YOU ARE ADDING IN WORDS. What I want to understand is why you can’t admit that you’re refusal to understand the movement is an implicit indication of racism or racist tendencies? Think about it. What other reason is keeping you from even reading about the plight of black people in America. What other reason is preventing you from sympathizing with the countless families who have lost wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, GRANDPARENTS, friends. What other possible reason can there be except you don’t think their black lives are more important than “police procedure,” which let’s get this straight, is obviously, perpetually being broken, shattered, tossed aside. 

That’s what it sounds like when you tell black people that the reason the police are shooting us is because we’re doing something “wrong,” we’re “not complying with the police,” or my favorite, “look like criminals.” If you don’t want to accept the fact you’re inherently racist, at least accept the fact that your prejudice is so astounding, that in all of your efforts you prove that you don’t believe “All Lives Matter” because you have zero compassion for those black people who lost theirs. I don’t understand why you get upset when people call you racist, yet you continue to exhibit racist behavior? It’s like you’re someone who’s afraid of heights, but won’t admit it and instead tell people, I just don’t want to be too far from the ground. JUST ADMIT IT. 

The thing is, you won’t, because you have no desire to change. You think everyone is out to get you and take away your rights, when in reality, we’re all just fighting to have the same rights. You won’t admit your fault because the term PC is bewilderingly offensive to you and the thought of being mindful of others’ feelings and concerns personally peeves to you. Instead of looking to figure out the stem of this discontent, you would rather relish in the rhetoric of a narcissistic megalomaniac who is hellbent on entrenching within this country homophobic, racist, and xenophobic polices that you wholeheartedly support. What made you so hateful and so angry that the thought of helping your fellow man or witnessing a weary outcry of a beleaguered community enrages you to the point where you leave comments like this on Ben & Jerry’s Facebook page:

Tom Bearman Lent  - Sade black lives matter does revolve around white people. Because within the context of BLM black lives only matter when a black person is killed by a white person. BLM doesn’t care about black on black,black on Hispanic or any other combination. You guys protest the vaugest of shut and use it as an excuse to attack white people.

Maximillian Shen As an Asian American, I see BLM being very similar to a domestic terrorist organization (disrupting others’ lives, threatening to kill non-blacks, etc.) Guess I will avoid Ben & Jerry’s for a while.

Jonathan Barclay I agree there is a problem. But when BLM openly advocates the murder of police officers then your movement lost all credibility. Like the KKK they are a terrorist organization. And your support of them causes me to now refuse to buy my favorite ice cream. I support accountability. FOR EVERYONE!

Jon Michael Necaise I will not be buying your products again since you support a extremely racist terror group who calls for the death of all white people and police. Fuck you Ben & Jerry’s

I’M SO TIRED.

*This post is not just for non-POC, but for anyone who feels the BLM movement is offensive.

I’m Not Here For You

The fact that I feel like I have to continuously defend my blackness is astounding and shocking on so many levels. Like, where is this coming from?! But also, who are these people?! In this day and age of #blackgirlmagic and a refreshing resurgence of unapologetic, indelible pride in being brown, I am TIRED of hearing people tell me I’m “different” or explain things to me about the black experience as if I’m some ignorant bystander. Regardless of how you think I interpret race, I am still a black woman existing in a society that is constantly telling me I’ll never be good enough, scoffing at any semblance of confidence, and making snap judgments about my character. 

This assertion that I don’t understand what’s happening in my own community seems like another type of prejudice masked in this realm of pseudo-political correctness and saccharine empathy. This strange haughtiness of liberals who believe they “get it” and truly understand all of the issues plaguing the black community more than the black people experiencing it is just plain ridiculous. 

It’s infuriating and it’s exhausting, but like, in the end - I’m not here for you. I don’t owe anyone an explanation. I don’t need to defend my blackness, because, regardless of whether or not whoever thinks I’m “black enough,” I will and forever be black. I’m not in a “unique” situation. I’m not “above” criticism or the white gaze. I haven’t ascended to the plane of that fallacy “beyond race.” I’m still pissed as hell about that stupid Buzzfeed video. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe this notion is so upsetting, because I can still remember being called “oreo” in high school and screaming on the inside because it incensed me that people’s perception of blackness was so limited. It hurt me that people felt that who I was didn’t have a place in the narrative of black culture, like I was some pariah. It angers me because I thought the older we got the wiser we got and that meant that I no longer had to explain that blackness comes in all different shades and that inferring otherwise is no better than haplessly stereotyping. But again, I’m not here for them. I’m not here for this oversimplified bs and I’m not here for that self-righteousness. Ain’t nobody got time for that.