Dear White Allies, You’re Doing It Wrong

As a community we’ve struggled with how to deal with the fact that we keep dying in droves. Some of us are angry, some of us are grieving but, all of us are hurting. Do you know what it feels like to see someone that looks like you or your mom or sister or brother or dad lying dead in a picture that’s plastered all over the news? Of course you don’t. And you especially don’t know that it’s worse when you don’t see the pictures on the news. Or that whenever you see a hashtag with the most recent death you hold your breath and pray that it’s not a name you recognize. You know that you should be out there holding up your sign and laying your head on the ground because if he can’t breathe than neither can you. You know that you should be doing these things but you’re scared of what’ll happen if you do.

You say #BlackLivesMatter and you wear it on your head and your heart but sometimes you can’t help but wonder– do they really?

Because if they really mattered then why does the blood of our children continue to stain the hands of the people who are meant to protect us. And sometimes you’ll look at your brothers and sisters and you understand why your mama won’t let them go outside to play. It scares you into saying, “I won’t ever bring children into this world.” And on the surface you mean it but deep down you are hopeful that maybe someday it won’t be this way. But then it happens again and you realize that it won’t ever change. Do you know how that feels? To begin to believe that your life will never be worth what the persons’ who is standing next to you is worth? Of course you don’t. And some of you, some of you chant and march with us and you see us crying and you see us lying there on the ground and you wonder what can you do.

The answer is nothing. The answer is everything. You can’t fix what is broken but you can tear it down and build something new and better– something that hurts less and doesn’t break hearts. You cannot fix what is broken and you cannot understand something you don’t know. But you can be better and you can teach the ignorant because if our lives matter less than yours than so do our words. You can take what we tell you and you can tell the next person and the next. You can stand at the edges and you can shout with us instead of trying to shout over us. You can push us to walk forward instead of insisting that in order for things to change we must take several steps back. And when you have learned and listened to us then you can tell them that all we ask, all we want; is for you to stop killing us.