white supremacy

Other than proud white supremacists like Great Uncle Jack, who really wants to be called racist? But many people are racist without even realizing that they are. This is because many of us have a skewed image of what a racist looks like.

A recent tweet from Ellen DeGeneres has got the whole world talking for all the wrong reasons.

I was angry and felt defeated. I also knew deep in my heart that this would have never happened if I were white. I had been using Uber for over 2 1/2 years and never came across anything similar to this.

Where did this particular ideology of not “seeing” race come from? What are the origins of “colorblindness” and what are their current consequences? Here’s the disturbing legacy you’re building on if you take a “colorblind” approach to race.

No black man, woman, or gender non-conforming person is safe from the terrorism of police brutality and racist white people’s actions against us, let alone our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

As much as you want to believe people are all the same, we don’t have the luxury of being seen as the “default” in the same way white, straight, cis people often are. We don’t have the luxury of dismissing our painful history and systemic issues for the sake of everyone getting along, because we’re still in the middle of them.

It is a very difficult and dangerous job, and it does require officers to have the ability to make good split second decisions. None of that should mean that it’s OK to be incompetent, or that we should all rush to justify, ignore, or excuse incompetence, racism, ableism, and the inappropriate use of force.

It’s easy for folks in America to get angry but it’s incredibly difficult to get them to stay angry. To transfer anger to hope. And to participate in transformation. Then to start all over again with the next hashtag.