Dateline--May 31, 2020 (USA)
Good Morning, White America.
How'd you sleep while our cities were burning and tensions boiling over?
Oh, you thought I meant last night?
How about the last 401 years?
I'm talking to you Karen Van Winkle. Are you awake now? Did it really have to come to this?
You thought it was "all better" once we afforded a few civil rights to our neighbors of color. You told them, in essence, to "Calm Down!" when they protested by taking a knee. Your white, American sensibilities got all riled when they wouldn't stand for the anthem. Well now your cities are burning, both literally and figuratively. And you're going to sit there, in your Anglo-Christian self-righteous indignation, and call them "thugs" and "savages" for burning it down?
Where ya been, Karen?
This didn't start with George Floyd in May 2020. It started in 1619 when your white ancestors brought African slaves to this continent. It's been going on ever since. Maybe these images will remind you of our long history of brutality towards blacks. OUR COLLECTIVE KNEE ON THEIR NECK.
In the 52 years that I've been alive, I have seen with my own eyes the stain of slavery on American society. It was mere months before I was born that we took out Martin Luther King, Jr., because we didn't care to hear his message of freedom.
And over that half century, we've taken out countless numbers of black men who we didn't care to hear. Well, their blood is crying out to be heard.
How long did you expect them to remain silent, peaceful, "in their place," white America? Racial tension was already at a boiling point, with black America dying at a significantly higher rate from COVID-19. And while we were all home, watching from our living room, more racial injustice played out in living color across our devices. What did you expect them to do, Karen, just take it? More abuse, more death by cop, more senseless killing, more white outrage over their method of protest while ignoring their message?
They are starting fires because you weren't listening. They are rioting in the streets because in four centuries not that much has changed. They are demanding justice because we pretended like all footing was made equal in the 1960's.
For 52 years, I've watched you turn a blind eye to their plight. Generations of poverty, oppression and marginalization didn't affect you, white America, so you went about your "Leave It To Beaver" lives in your white suburbs, pretending like all was good across this great country of ours.
Then our nation was forced to deal with our ugly scars. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic hit and forced us to shut down for about 8 weeks. Karen Van Winkle got restless. Her hair grew out in all it's natural glory. We saw her roots. She demanded her freedom. She likened the lockdown to slavery and oppression. White America was finally getting a taste of it's own medicine--limits on liberty, joblessness and in some cases, hopelessness. How do you think it's felt for so many of our neighbors to be black in America? That's been their existence for generations, dating back to 1619.
You were inconvenienced for 6-8 weeks, unable to get your hair done, have Girls Night Out and attend Celine Dion concerts. That's not even in the ballpark of centuries of oppression and marginalization, Karen! Get over your pasty white self.
Your city is on fire. Are you paying attention, yet?
It is burning because you failed to give proper attention, proper respect and human dignity to your neighbors of color. It is burning because from 1619 on, you didn't see them as fully equal, fully human or fully American. It is burning because white people started this violence, not the "thugs" and "savages" looting your precious Target.
White America doesn't understand this at all. They don't understand that this has been a violent struggle since the beginning. Instead of crosses burning, police vehicles and businesses are burning. Why? Because you started this mess, Karen!
Do you think the African slaves boarded ships because your ancestors told them to? No they were bought and sold and herded like cattle. The white men took what they wanted violently and made them their property.
Fast forward about 340 years and you have the civil rights marches of the 1960's. White America didn't understand why black America couldn't just be happy "in their place." And when these peaceful protests fanned out across the South, we released the dogs, the hoses and the police brutality. WE were the aggressors, Karen, the purveyors of violence! Not them.
Fast forward another 50 years and you have black athletes taking a knee in silent protest. Even that, you met with vocal outrage and faux patriotism. White America still wasn't listening. They drowned out the message with attacks on the protestors, turning their backs and a blind eye toward what was still going on right under their white noses.
You know, if you ignore it, it might just go away, right?
We've been ignoring it for the 52 years I've been a natural-born American citizen. And now our cities are burning.
We reached a boiling point. The death of George Floyd, an American murdered on the streets of Minneapolis, was a catalyst, a tipping point. Blame the pandemic, blame the jobless numbers, the deafness and ineptitude of our leaders in the face of crisis, but the tone deafness of white America towards 400 years of racial injustice and inequality is the real culprit.
We've had our collective white knee on the neck of African-Americans this whole time. You think 8 minutes is a long time (and I grieve with you Floyd family), try 401 years!
It's time to wake up and to own this culpability, white America. You've remained silent and willfully ignorant for too long. Your silence has spoken much louder than your words.
Stop pinning the blame on protestors, rioters, your neighbors...take your own knee off their neck and STOP THE VIOLENCE!
Have a great day!
