Because I can't talk to anyone else in the world about this...
The number of white people who are telling me how angry I should be over race relations in my country is infuriating. I'm 41 years old, black and live in Virginia. Once the heart of the confederacy. Before the pandemic, I drove past rebel flags on a daily basis. I currently live 10 minutes away from an honest-to-God auction platform on which slaves were once sold. There's a sobering plaque and everything. I previously lived in a town with an active chapter of the KKK. The son of one of those members cracked my skull with a 2x4. I was literally the victim of a violent hate-crime. On top of all this, most people I meet think I'm middle-eastern. I'll let you guess what that meant in 2001 after 9/11. I get it. I don't need you to explain how people like me are treated. I have forgotten more about being the victim of racism than I hope most of you will ever know. I've never believed that one needs "qualifications" to be entitled to objective thought on any subject; but if such a thing is necessary, I have them for this one.
And I am so tired of people whose entire identity is so wrapped up in being "woke" that anything that clashes with their world view is heresy, and anyone who speaks it it prejudice. I'm tired of people who will scream and shout about the importance of "black voices" and "privilege" and how "people need to listen," but the instant they don't agree with one of those voices, it all goes right out the window, because for all their talk about how much more "enlightened" they are than other white people because they've learned how to listen; all they really mean is that they're special, they know more, they understand better, and so clearly any reasonable minority voice will instantly agree with them. Which is really just the same shit that the people they're so angry at think; with just a slightly different flavor.
With all that out of the way, I do no not believe that things are as dire as they are made out to be. And there is evidence to support this that no one wants to hear because they are afraid that that mentioning it, let alone talking about it, means they're racist. Wanting to consider every side of an issue that inspires rage and violence and separates us...this isn't a sign of hatred, it's responsible thinking. And for the love of God, stop rioting. Destroying your own community, tearing down people's livelihoods, destroying the lives of INNOCENT people who had NOTHING to do with what you're angry about...it solves nothing. It benefits no one. All it does is make things worse. ORGANIZE! Identify exactly what it is you want and make demands! Then march! Protest peacefully! Demonstrate peacefully! Spread your demand peacefully! *nothing* that has happened justifies harming those who have done you no wrong. And no, "someone with the same skin color did me wrong" does not cut it. That's Klan logic. "I believe this person is benefiting from someone else's misdeeds even if he did nothing himself" doesn't cut it, either. Every man is responsible for his own actions and no one else's, save perhaps his children; to a degree. You cannot ignore this, ruin the lives of innocent people, and then claim the moral high-ground just because you're angry. No amount of rage - REGARDLESS of how righteous and deserved that rage may be - give you the right to hurt others.