I’m tired.
We’re all tired.
We’re tired of our brothers and sisters dying, of being held back. We can no longer carry you or take the burden of this grief and pain alone. We can no longer beg you to care.
You benefit from this system every day you don’t fear for your life. Every day you don’t have to ‘be political’, every day you turn off the news and walk away because it doesn’t affect you. Our lives, our skin colour, our identities are political, and you may think you’re immune but you’re not.
Your silence is unacceptable.
When you say nothing, you say you are okay with this inequality. When you say nothing, you say you don’t care when we die. When you say nothing, you say when things don’t affect you directly, they don’t matter. When you sit idly by, when you support ignorant conservatives who work to devalue our lives with your money, your words, your votes. .
You are political.
Your silence is political. You are making a conscious choice to be complicit in our destruction.
You don’t know enough? Go learn. You feel uncomfortable? Good. You’re scared you’ll say something wrong? We all are: the difference is you misspeaking doesn’t cost you your life.
You’re scared you’ll lose friends? Don’t be friends with people who don’t care about human rights. You’re worried you’ll be seen as ‘too much’, ‘too political’, ‘too belligerent’? Well, imagine being seen as the aggressor, the criminal, the speck on your damn shoe.
You are not separate from this.
This will never, has never ‘not involved you’. You benefit from our misfortunes. You live inside a system of oppression whether you understand this or not. If you have never feared for your life. If you have never had someone question your worth. If you have never been seen as other, or lesser, your demands not heard, your needs pushed aside.
The most progressive of you still refuse to make a sound. You come out against climate change, misogyny, homophobia, against liars and thieves. But you draw the line at murder? What is about our deaths which make it so easy for you to look away? You say all lives matter: your lives were never in danger, but` ours still are.
You look at America in shame and think we’re better, that we’re above such squabbles, such unrest. Tell me why no police officer has ever been charged for the over 432 Indigenous deaths in custody. Show me the justice for Tanya Day, Kumanyaji Waler, David Dungay. This country is built on the stolen lands of Indigenous people: a fact you all try so hard to cover up. Do not hide behind the racism of other nations, don’t seek devastation elsewhere when violence is here right in front of you. First Nations people on this continent have some of the highest incarceration rates in the world. They are targets of police, are forcibly removed from their homes and refused medical treatment.
If this makes you uncomfortable, I’m glad. If it makes you angry? It means you’re learning. If you’re ashamed then do something about it. Take this time to understand your part in the ongoing oppression of First Nations people. Unlearn the racism crammed down our throats by the education system, by government, by right-wing media. Unlearn the stereotypes, the profiling, the dismissal. Decolonise your thinking.
These lessons are uncomfortable, these events disturbing, their continuation: unforgivable. But as is your consistent disregard for the facts. The mistreatment and abuse of the Black community is not an isolated event. It is symptomatic of a system that works to directly benefit those in power at the detriment of others.
The system is not broken: it’s functioning exactly as it was created to.
That same system that tells you you’re doing nothing wrong, that you’re perfect just the way you are. It’s telling us, we Bla(c)k folk, that we deserve this pain. That somehow despite all historical evidence to support otherwise, we need to try a little harder, behave a little better. Then maybe we wouldn’t have all this trouble, then maybe our community members would still be alive.
You never mention the economic disadvantage, the covert and overt racism, the microaggressions, the institutional disadvantages that mean I cannot strive where you can. Which mean I cannot ‘just’ succeed as you can. You started your life with advantages we don’t have and can never have,, an extra step up that meant you are never questioned about or because of the colour of your skin.
Look at your life. Look at your friends, your workplace, your teachers, your social media feeds, your bookshelf, your playlists, your government, your idols, your mentors, the voices you are listening to. Are they white? Do they look like you? Do they represent the population or simply a microcosm that you feel comfortable in? Ask yourself why, then fix it. Diversify these spaces and strive to do better and encourage others to do the same.
You might shy away because of your guilt, but it’s time to feel that guilt. Sit in it. Ponder it. Let it run through you. Because that is what it feels like to benefit while others suffer.
We don’t need your white guilt; we need your white action. Go to rallies, call your local representative, support progressive policy, talk to your relatives, friends and families. Listen to and magnify Black voices, Indigenous voices. Those who this system has kept hidden. Stop sitting idly by. Stop telling us how to riot, how to scream, how to fight. Stop telling us how to grieve.
Don’t let your silence speak for you. Don’t let your unwillingness to speak be your consent. You have a voice, so use it. You have a voice, so yell.
About the author
Rosie Ofori-Ward is a Ghanian Australian woman living and studying policy reform in Naarm/Melbourne. You can find follow her exploration into intersectional feminist literature on Instagram.