Don’t Look Away

White Siblings,
Don’t look away.
Don’t avert your eyes.

Yes, there is a danger even in reposting these because of the moral license they may give other racists who see them.

GeorgeFloydChallengeBut you….dear White sibling…

You who are still more concerned about property damage and protesting “the right way”…

You who every time there is a one shred of anger from the justifiably angry launch into endless “Whataboutism….”

YOU need to see this.
YOU need to meditate on this, deeply.

THIS is WHY people are in the streets. This is one of the twin poles of the protests and anger for African-Americans. One of those poles is Police Brutality.

The other is White Supremacy.

Far too many of you continue to insist that White Supremacy doesn’t exist. That it’s a myth. That you’re not racist. That you don’t know any.

But don’t look away.
Don’t avert your eyes.

It DOES exist, and this is the evil fruit of its tree.

I was blessed to stand with a group of several hundred young people, about the age of these young men last night on the streets of North Oak Cliff. Yes, many were people of color, but overall the group was beautifully diverse…and very unified in their anger at both Police Brutality and White Supremacy.

The White Supremacy that “stamped us from the beginning,” and that has continued even through our present-day in far too many laws (and far too many ways laws are unevenly enforced…) THAT is what leads to this.

Don’t look away.
Don’t avert your eyes.

This is not just some stupid “Tide Pod Challenge.”

These are pictures of White people who have been raised without basic human compassion, in a time when we are led by a President who not only doesn’t understand compassion, but who also talks of “good people on all sides.”

Or, these are White people who have been raised to think this is just “funny.”

Here’s what we don’t need. Here’s what I don’t need…

We don’t need you to just comment on this post…

“OMG! That’s disgusting!”
“OMG! I am not lilke that!”
“OMG! My heart is breaking.”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need to hear that you condemn this on my social media thread.

No Black person needs just your broken heart over this.

What they NEED –what they are telling all of us, what they have been telling for DECADES– is to for you to confront each and every person you know in your life who thinks this is either “just funny” or “acceptable.”

It’s neither, and as White people, THE SPECIAL BURDEN TO FIGHT THIS IS ON US.

This is not time for “Well, I’m not like this,” any more than “Not My President” absolves us all of where we are as a nation.

This is who we are.
THIS is a part of America.

Don’t look away.
Don’t avert your eyes.

Don’t virtue signal how much we all find this disgusting. Do something different.

Do all you  can to speak to other White people. Of course, on social media…but way more imporantly in real life.

THAT is on US…that is what WE can do.

So, do it.

Make it clear…
THIS. IS. NOT. OK.

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