My White Friends – you are not listening.

I have been very tempted, to be boundaried enough, to share screenshots here of what goes on in my private messages. Because some of you are not getting it and you need to be told in a different way it seems.

And right now, I have to break it you: most of you are still being racist. I think I need to break it down for you more, what racism really means. It is not them over there, it's you and it's us right now, daily. Most of you are still using your White Privilege and upholding the White Supremacist structure. The fact that I am even spending my time having to write this, proves that fact.

But this will be one of the few times I will give you this education for free.

My main points are this:

• Stop centring yourselves and your Whiteness
• Stop stealing my time.  
• Stop taking up space where it is not wanted. Black & POC need safe spaces. Whiteness likes to invade all spaces. Whiteness assumes that it has access and should have access to all spaces. The fact that some of you do not even think if you “should” or if it is “appropriate” to message me is proof that you do not see your White Privilege and you centre yourself over my needs. (My needs right now are to rest and heal from this pain btw… )
• Stop Private Messaging me, DMing me, Whats-apping me, emailing me. (especially if I haven’t heard from you in a long time, and you chose now to message me).
• By asking if I am “ok”, or “did I do something to upset you?” or telling me you are thinking of me “at these times” after not speaking or messaging me for weeks/months/years.
• Asking me to do the work to make you feel ok in your whiteness. Wasting my precious time and my Blackness, to alleviate your guilt and uncomfortable feelings. (have you stopped to think about mine?)
• You are centring yourself by asking for me to attend to you right now. In the middle of Black Lives Matter, when I am dealing with so much community pain. YOU want attention, you want the cookie, you want to take my time.
• This is still racism – this is White People colonising/stealing (still) from Black people. Because none of you are paying me.

• Stop looking to me as the voice of all things "Black" in your lives.
• Stop reaching out to me as your one Black Friend to speak on these things
• Blackness is not a monolith. I do not speak for, nor can I answer for ALL of Blackness and the Black Community. I am not the spokesperson. And if I am your only voice, one of your few Black Friends, then you need to look at that too.
• Stop treating racism like some arbitrary debate. This is not something for you get together and “discuss over pizza or wine”. This is not up for debate… EVER. This is not a discussion on whether apples or oranges are best. This is about a world denying humanity to the majority world population. This is about people’s lives, their dignity, liberation and freedom.
• Stop expecting Black people to be nice to you. I am having some really shitty days right now and I do not have the fucking bandwidth to always be nice. Ps. Also, by expecting Black people to always be nice to you – that is racism. Research: the Mammy figure – how Whiteness expects to be coddled by Black Womxn.  
• Again here is the expectation that your discomfort takes precedence over my life/wellbeing. Again, this is racism/White Privilege
• If it wasn’t for racism, I could just get on with my life. I literally could have written that novel, or play I still dream of. I could have created the drama training school I dream of. I could have started the family I wanted to earlier, I could have been able to save for a house or a world wide adventure trip. Racism is a thief of time and energy. And the time you take from me is part of that racist White Supremacy structure.
• Stop sharing material without thought. The effects of racism are know to elicit PTSD/ CPTSD. PTSD is  chronic and debilitating mental illness. This is what racism does. This is what suffering from racism does. Sharing images and posts without real thought and reflection, is to reintroduce trauma to PTSD’s sufferers. Again, you are centring yourself with your empty performative attempts to look like and ally, and what you are actually doing is reinforcing the racism and trauma.
• Stop watching the Help.
• Stop watching 12 years a Slave.
• Stop watching The Butler.
• Stop perpetuating the narrative  of Black = trauma.
• Stop expecting Black and POC to do the work.
• Stop putting the onus on to us to serve you the answer. Us doing the work for you, for free… guess what that      sounds and looks like???
• Stop emailing them for reading lists, or advice, or research.
• Stop calling them into your work institutions to speak on their personal experiences to validate that racism exists. Why do you people to re-enact their trauma for you to believe racism exists? Talking about racist experiences are so painful. It can trigger PTSD. Why are you asking Black and POC to do this in work spaces?
• Stop asking Black people for the answers to “solve racism” when White People created it. Racism is a White problem.
• PAY PAY PAY for the work that you take from Black and POC  

Just so we are clear: every single thing above I have mentioned is STILL racist. Still perpetuates racism. Still keeps the White Supremacist Structure intact.

Genuinely, I am not excited at all about the current “tide of change”, because all I am seeing is racism showing up but with a different face. I would rather handle an out-and-out racist than the white Liberal shit I see right now, which is fucking deadly. (read MLK on the danger of the middle ground).

I don’t think people in the UK are really ready to face themselves. Because what we are going to see is fucking ugly. I don’t think you are all really ready to do the work. Because I don’t really see anyone really listening to Black people. I see a lot of performance, action without reflection and guilt.

Black and POC have been telling you for decades what we need. You may think you have woken up – maybe you have. But you are still not listening. Time and time again we are asking you to listen, banging our heads against a wall telling you to listen -  then watch as you post a Black Square, sing a song, post a few articles, wrote an email, made a statement of “solidarity”, then go back to your day and feel satisfied that you did enough.

So go back to my previous posts and read them while they are still there. Buy Layla F Saad as a starter. Then: Be quiet. Sit still. Be uncomfortable. Listen. Do the work you were asked to do. Don’t debate. Don’t ask for a cookie. Don’t look for validation. Get on with it…