Blk ppl's views on race age like our skin: no cracks. Listen to 1960s Baldwin or 1990s Sister Souljah. You'll hear drumtight, baby-skin truth. In other words, there is no extra step or evolution necessary in blk ppl's understanding of white America. We been knew. We understand and overstand the situation. It's not b/c we're soulful spirits or magical negroes with psychic powers or talk to the 'city of bones' through special wind chimes.
We've just been saying what our mothers and fathers told us. And they've been saying what our grandparents said, and on and on it goes like a seemingly endless chain. That's why an 18-year-old black activist can express more truth and wisdom in a short clip than a 80-year-old white senator. We've been saying the same timeless, flawless truth. We made songs about it, stitched it into quilts, gave speeches, expounded on it during debates, breakdanced to it, chanted protest anthems, marched. We've encoded it into our culture b/c it's a matter of our survival. It's our beauty secret, our truth serum, our burning sage to clear the air.
That's why some blks find it exhausting when white ppl ask for education. It's like we've been saying 'the house is on fire' for 3 hrs and your white colleague is like 'wait...you sound upset. Calm down and let's try to figure out what WE need to understand about this situation?' This is not a negotiation where I say 'the house is on fire' and you say 'okay but the upstairs closets aren't on fire right now so maybe you need to calm down and see my perspective.' Bitch the house is on fire. The kitchen, closets, and bathrooms will be on fire soon b/c that's the way toxicity spreads. There's no partial shutdown of an inferno. You can't shut down the downstairs living room on fire, but keep the upstairs bedrooms open b/c the fire isn't there yet.
The segregated un-reality of white America doesn't understand how racism works, how viruses work, why you need to wear a mask, how we're all interconnected, how one county having a surge in sickness means we all going to get it. That's why the rest of the world perfectly understands coronavirus and white America is going up in flames. Comprehensive, holistic, reality doesn't penetrate people who live a fractured existent that allows its viewers to hold their feelings with the same importance as facts. The unreality kills because it lives in a world in which black ppl doing drugs in the 90s was a crime-based problem and white people doing drugs now is a health crisis.
Blk ppl continue to say the same thing. And we have to both maintain complete calm so they don't upset white ppl, say the same goddamn thing AGAIN, pretend like it's brand new, and then coddle the awakening in their white colleague like a 'race nanny.' And we do all of this while the house is on fire. We do all this while being the most likely to die first in the blaze.
We've just been saying what our mothers and fathers told us. And they've been saying what our grandparents said, and on and on it goes like a seemingly endless chain. That's why an 18-year-old black activist can express more truth and wisdom in a short clip than a 80-year-old white senator. We've been saying the same timeless, flawless truth. We made songs about it, stitched it into quilts, gave speeches, expounded on it during debates, breakdanced to it, chanted protest anthems, marched. We've encoded it into our culture b/c it's a matter of our survival. It's our beauty secret, our truth serum, our burning sage to clear the air.
That's why some blks find it exhausting when white ppl ask for education. It's like we've been saying 'the house is on fire' for 3 hrs and your white colleague is like 'wait...you sound upset. Calm down and let's try to figure out what WE need to understand about this situation?' This is not a negotiation where I say 'the house is on fire' and you say 'okay but the upstairs closets aren't on fire right now so maybe you need to calm down and see my perspective.' Bitch the house is on fire. The kitchen, closets, and bathrooms will be on fire soon b/c that's the way toxicity spreads. There's no partial shutdown of an inferno. You can't shut down the downstairs living room on fire, but keep the upstairs bedrooms open b/c the fire isn't there yet.
The segregated un-reality of white America doesn't understand how racism works, how viruses work, why you need to wear a mask, how we're all interconnected, how one county having a surge in sickness means we all going to get it. That's why the rest of the world perfectly understands coronavirus and white America is going up in flames. Comprehensive, holistic, reality doesn't penetrate people who live a fractured existent that allows its viewers to hold their feelings with the same importance as facts. The unreality kills because it lives in a world in which black ppl doing drugs in the 90s was a crime-based problem and white people doing drugs now is a health crisis.
Blk ppl continue to say the same thing. And we have to both maintain complete calm so they don't upset white ppl, say the same goddamn thing AGAIN, pretend like it's brand new, and then coddle the awakening in their white colleague like a 'race nanny.' And we do all of this while the house is on fire. We do all this while being the most likely to die first in the blaze.
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