Dear Allies...

Please unlearn the phrase, "I don't see color/race."  You CANNOT be a true ally if you don't understand how problematic this statement is.

I know the intent of the phrase is to demonstrate a belief that everyone is the same from the standpoint of humanity.  It's admirable.  The problem is, we live in a country that does not view it's people this way.  There are, indeed, differences between us, and as a result of the creation (yes, Love, google it) and eventual weaponizing of race, if you don't see color, you cannot see that our experiences as black men, women and children are unique in both amazing and terrifying ways. 

Ask yourself why you even feel the need to say that you don't see color.  I contend it's because you actually do, and you fully understand the implications the color of our skin carry with it.  Otherwise, there would be no compulsion to insist that you're different, especially since.... well..... you're not.

In the same way omission is a lie, failing to acknowledge the systemic oppression that has plagued us for nearly 400 years is tantamount to complicity.  It's WORSE than silence.  It's gaslighting. 

You live in a nation that requires its "citizens" to self identify.  We're "one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all," right?  So what the fuck difference does it make what box I check?  Oh, right.  The shit they feed us about wanting to make sure programs and dollars are allocated (or not) in the proper places.  Come on son.

To not acknowledge the differences between your existence and ours is to highlight the fact that you never even have to think about it.  How many times in your entire life have you actually left your home with your whiteness in the back of your mind?  How many times has the sudden awareness of your skin color impacted the way - or even if - you interacted with any particular group of people? How often do you even think of yourself as white, except in the presence of black and brown people?  And I contend that when you're in the presence of black and brown people, you still don't think about your whiteness.  You think about our black and brownness.  Tell me I'm wrong.

My blackness is a threat to people I'll never even meet, and in spaces I will never even occupy.  Just think about that.  That's a fucken powerful attribute, yet it puts black lives in danger every single hour of every single day in this country.   America is the poster child for destroying power it can't wield.  Together, there would be no limit to things we could achieve as a nation, but America is not a team player.  Racists have no interest in"Team Gold" so they are forever the Tonya Harding to our Nancy Kerrigan. 

So if you really want to be an ally, stop saying you don't see color.  You NEED to see color to see ME. I don't have the luxury of not being painfully aware of the both the gift and the curse it is to walk around in this skin.  I don't have the luxury of not understanding that it is the gift that has brought on the curse - but you're not ready for that.  I don't have the luxury of feeling entitled to ANYTHING, even when I am.  But I also don't have the luxury of accepting the world as it is.  This skin requires that I fight for what I'm due, for what my children are due.  If you're going to be an ally, I'm going to expect you to be by my side, fighting with me.  With us.  SEEING us.  

And you can't do that UNTIL you see color.

In love.