sleep is a luxury i still have, a luxury i can’t release myself into as i’m caught in the horror of the last few days…
i have the privilege of a living body to resist sleep. black lives are so casually ripped from their bodies in such horrifically violent, atrociously unjust, unconscionable ways with such pedestrian regularity SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK. Alton Sterling and Philando Castile will never have the luxury of resisting sleep again.
i choose to stay awake. far too many police kill from blatant racism or more dangerously, from unchecked, unconscious bias… far too many black men loose the ability to choose to sleep, or dream, or raise their children or even just walk down the street with their lives and bodies still intact.
if you are white and want to continue to pretend you are “colorblind” or that race is “just a cultural concept” I beg you with pleading consternation, devastation, empathy for your pollyannic privileged ignorance and broiling rage — please wake up to your privilege and stop being complacent. if you pretend you don’t see color, than you are also pretending you don’t see race; if you refuse to see race, then you refuse to see racism. we are all swimming in the same socially constructed sea that teaches all people to overvalue whiteness and undervalue blackness to the detriment and domination of black people and the extreme privilege of white people. you benefit from a white supremacist society and culture that systematically perpetuates institutionalized racism in order to maintain white privilege and power. i’m sorry if this offends you; you did not choose the color of your skin any more than our black brothers and sisters that are ceaselessly murdered at the hands of police, kept disempowered and undereducated through impoverished inner-city school districts in historically redlined black neighborhoods, rejected from well-paying employment or disproportionally locked up in privatized for-profit jails through our criminal (in)justice system… you did not choose this but you sure do benefit.
it is not anyones fault that you are white or i am an uncomfortable mixture of white and brown or that your neighbor is black… it may not have been your choice, however, your whiteness is your responsibility. if you are not an active ally, you are perpetuating the oppressive, homicidal, racist system. i am sorry if this statement hurts your feelings AND your feelings are not my biggest concern. maybe that feels unpleasant to read. maybe that feels extreme and it would be far more comfortable to write me off as being “liberal” or “leftist” or just angry and biased.
i am sorry. it IS uncomfortable and your comfort is not my priority.
if you are not actively working to dismantle white supremacy, you are an oppressor. if you are not actively working against the racist machine, you are perpetuating it. it IS that simple. it sucks, i know. but that doesn’t make it not so.
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
full stop.
full stop.
i love you. i really do. and in this moment, wherever you are in the world and reading this, i hold you in my heart. we are all in this together, it’s just some of us pay a much steeper price. let’s work to change that. again, i love you.
goodnight.
<3
~ artemisia
ps. here are some resources for any white people who want to know where to start to interrupt your complacency, shame, discomfort, comfort or devastation to be an ally to People of Color:
Concrete Ways to Be an Actual Ally to Black People:
This is what white people can do to support #BlackLivesMatter:
11 Things White People Can Do to Be Real Anti-Racist Allies:
White Privilege, Explained in One Simple Comic: