On Mute

I was told earlier by someone, “I’m proud to be a white American woman...I won’t apologize for it.” 

Cool. No one is saying you have to apologize for that or that you can’t be a PROUD, WHITE AMERICAN but let me be clear....I want to be a PROUD ETHNIC HUMAN BEING as well. 

•I’m Greek, German, French, and Irish.

•When I was younger I was a model and I was told I needed a nose job by my agent because this Greek feature was far “too ethnic.”

•My hair has been criticized for being too kinky and fro(ish). “Do you have black in you, ‘cuz your hair...” Maybe, I’m Greek? Now stop fucking touching it. 

•I was born in Germany.

•I’ve had to prove citizenship every time I’ve entered MY AMERICAN country. Speaking full English which, by the way, is the only actual language I AM FLUENT IN! Not the only one I can speak and understand but it’s definitely the only one I am fluent in. “Speak American...this is AMERICA!” 

•My nephews are Mexican and one of them is gay.

•My niece is half black. 

•My husband is Filipino, Spanish, French and Lebanese. 

•I’ve been told at an American Airport MY LAST NAME ISN’T “American” enough. “This is why you are being searched...it’s looks like a terrorist’s last name.” Okay...but it’s Greek, you ignorant fuck! 

•I went to a predominantly BLACK HIGH SCHOOL where I was a cheerleader and one time I left immediately after a game was over. A drive-by shooting happened and MY CAR was shot around to get to the house the shooters were aiming for. I passed a cop on the way out. HE DID NOT MOVE AN INCH....EVEN THOUGH HE SAW THE WHOLE THING. It took me getting home (some how calm) to finally lose my shit and call for some sort of help? No one had yet, apparently. 

•I had a RICH, WHITE woman stalk me for three years and it ruined my whole high school experience. 

•I have thrown myself into a fight to break people apart. 

•I have gone head-to-head with multiple bullies.

•I have been reported for defending someone else. 

•I have a black auntie and black brother-in-law. 

•I have a Mexican brother-in-law. 

•I have been harassed and sexually assaulted as a woman. 

•I have had to work harder at a male driven industry because I have a vagina! 

•I had been called a “n***** lover” because I was dating a black man. He was accused of being an “Uncle Tom.” 

•I have been accused of some fuckery because I’ve been out with “black friends” and by color and association alone we’re all considered suspicious. 

•I have, I have, I have but even still....

•••••

Even with MY list, I still look far more white than ANY BLACK FOLKS OUT THERE. I’m not getting racially profiled most days. I’m not considered a threat every time I leave my house. I’m not considered “inferior” because of my skin tone. Maybe because of my gender but usually not because of my skin tone. I’ve never been stopped for walking or jogging because I don’t belong in that neighborhood. I’ve never been pulled over for driving while black. So yea...I have a list but never have I ever, don’t raise a finger here. 

Although some of my experiences have involved racially fueled judgement, they DO NOT...I REPEAT...DO NOT NOR WILL THEY EVER pale in comparison to the constant bullshit black, brown, or anything darker than a shade of white endures. 

I keep going back to a photo I saw a couple of months back. A picture that was brought up to me by the very same person explaining they aren’t going to feel ashamed for being a white American. I refer back to this photo because what I saw were TWO WHITE DUDES: one carrying a rocket launcher, the other holding a large assault rifle. The cause for such “patriotism?” The goddamn Coronavirus! These dumb fucks thought getting a sandwich warranted heavy military artillery and not one cop wrestled them to the ground. Not one cop was seen putting a knee in either of their necks. I go back to this post because THIS IS the epitome of the racial hypocrisy running rampant in the United States, the country I’m no longer proud to call home! 

These men got their sandwiches and skedaddled with no problems had. Couldn’t one assume they were coming into to rob the place or better yet...be one of those “mentally ill” mass shooters everyone talks about but never stops or prevents? Couldn’t one assume they looked suspicious and they were up to no good? Couldn’t one suggest that they were putting lives in danger and they fit the profile of a mass shooter? 

The person that brought this post up couldn’t understand how I could compare this photo to what’s currently going on? How could I ever correlate one with the other? 

A) I’m not comparing. I’m showing you that a white guy in America can essentially do anything and it is excused for the most part. Jail sentence? Sure, sometimes. A slap on the wrist and the ole, “never do this again” talk? Most definitely. He’s being patriotic! Here read his manifesto. A viral pandemic....YES! HE SHOULD BE FULLY ARMORED AND READY TO GO! Buuuuut the wrath from watching a black man die yet again at the hands of another racist white cop....ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT! This is just the antics of “thugs” acting foolish and they deserve to be punished. Vivaciously and cruelly. What about all those businesses???? 

*To be clear: I DON’T CONDONE VIOLENT PROTESTING nor do I agree with looting. I don’t understand how swiping clothes, liquor, and electronics is helping a movement....but I also don’t agree with protestors being plowed down by vehicles, being sprayed down with tear gas, and aggressively being pushed and shoved by the police state. So which was is the chicken and which one is the egg? 

B) I have a hard time believing “ALL LIVES MATTER” because it’s a counter argument that blatantly disregards black lives entirely. Fuck your “ALL LIVES” rhetoric. 

I’m tired of hearing it. 

And Yea!!!! All lives do matter, dipshit...NO ONE EVER SAID THEY DIDN’T! Except ‘all these lives’ keep killing ethnic lives. And if ALLLLLLLL lives do actually, in fact, matter...then why the misdirected angry towards the wrong thing? 

You are worried about stores with broken windows and missing items. I’m worried about entire crowds and communities being taken out by lethal gas, rubber bullets, and vehicles driven by anti-protestors. I’m still watching men in uniform still harm civilians. 

“Oh, the Target was destroyed? How dare these people?” 

“Fuck your Target...where were your ‘all lives matter’ when a young white dude shot up this or that school?” 

Furthermore, I didn’t see any of you fucks complaining when China 77 down the road got destroyed by some Coronavirus conspiracy theorists wearing an ‘Made in China’ American Flag tee shirt! 

What about Mr. Lee and his small business? 

Does this not fit in the “all lives” category? 

Are we all just picking and choosing now? 

Why are you more upset about property damage than the loss of human life? 

Where’s your pro-life campaign, now? 

Why aren’t you enraged that one of those “all lives” has been brutally murdered? WE ALL WATCHED IT HAPPEN! The entire world saw what happened. And this...this doesn’t bother you? 

A life is a life is a life is a HUMAN FUCKING LIFE. You don’t get to dictate which ones have more value. You don’t get to say “all lives” because this conversation isn’t about all lives...it’s about the black ones and the ethnic ones and the oppressed ones and the ones you make choke back all the maltreatment every time this sentiment is made. 

I don’t give a damn if George Floyd was ill and on his death bed. I could give two fucks if he was resisting arrest. I don’t give one iota if he wrote twenty fake checks prior to this police encounter...treat him with the same respect Dylann Roof got. Dylann walked into a church, killed nine people, and walked away with not even a scratch on his face. Two men. One stopped for forgery...murdered. The other a mass murderer...still alive to this day. One black. One white. One we watched die and one our tax dollars pay for prison time. 

Weren’t those nine individuals who were in God’s house included in “all lives mattering” or did they just not make the cut that day? Where were you when this happened? You certainly weren’t screaming, ALL LIVES MATTER then! No, you were silent. You wanted to find a cure to mental illness. Racism? No, fuck that...this was MENTAL FUCKING ILLNESS!!! No way it was blatant racism.  

You didn’t make a peep! So now you don’t get to.

Taking a knee was UN-AMERICAN! How can someone disrespect the National Anthem like that? How could the flag be treated so unfairly? 

Taking a knee pitted against a song and an article of cloth mostly mass produced in a factory overseas!

Taking a knee doesn’t kill a soldier. A war does that. 

Taking a knee doesn’t disrespect the flag. Wearing it, hanging it from the back of your truck bed, and letting it fall to the ground because your protesting your inability to get a hair cut does. 

Taking a knee doesn’t insult that same song you aren’t standing for on Sundays in your home. You aren’t insulted by anything...you’re just mad a black man is speaking up...the way you got so pissed when a black man became president. 

You don’t get to look a riots and violent protests as grotesque vile actions done by terrible people....while in the same breath you excuse privileged college kids from setting cars on fire after a football game. 

You don’t get to turn a blind eye to people torching Asian spots because of the “Chinese Virus” but attack everyone who is standing up for justice and inalienable rights. The same rights created for ALLLLLLL OF US! See how that works? All meaning inclusive. 

You don’t get to act all high and mighty and judge one thing but not the next. 

You don’t get to scream that “YOU ARE A PROUD WHITE AMERICAN!” when you never let anyone else have that same pride. 

Not anymore anyway. YOU HAVE BEEN MUTED! 

This isn’t just about you...even though you’ve tried your damndest to make it such. 

And YOU CAN GO BE THAT PROUD WHITE AMERICAN all you want..as long as you understand one thing...I WILL BE A PROUD ETHNIC HUMAN BEING. 

Stop taking away the same rights you so righteously throw in someone’s face. 

The anger you feel over the loss of personal possessions and material goods is the equivalent to the absolute rage I felt after watching the brutal loss of human life. 

I wanna know one thing? What makes you the superior race? So far...it’s just been handed to you or you’ve stolen it. You took land from indigenous people and made it your own. You brought slaves over to work your fields and do what you lazily didn’t want to do. You’ve made wages so unbearable that most of the top percent are white while most ethnic groups scrounge for change. You’ve gentrified neighborhoods so they “were safe” for you to walk in. You’ve built companies on the backs of the lower class. You’ve never worked as hard or as long to rise up...yet you’re the superior being and throw a dick in the mix and you become the master of all things. How? You haven’t done shit to gain this title. You begged, borrowed, cheated and stole your way up to that status. You didn’t earn it...and I’m not letting you take this title anymore. 

You have worn out your visit. You’ve messed this place up. You’ve eaten all the food and drank all the drinks. Your self-entitled attitude has exhausted me. I’m no longer serving you. I quit. Your bullshit is old, tired and weak. Your self-absorbed stance is a mask for your fragile little ego that no longer deserves the ass kissing that these lips have be subjected to. 

If you are offended by anything I have said-YOU ARE THAT WHITE PERSON! You ARE the PROBLEM and I’m no longer tolerating the crappy behavior. If I have to spend the rest of my eternity silencing you, I will...because it’s long overdue. It’s high time you get put on mute! 

“Emphasizing the crowd means de-emphasizing individual humans in the design of society, and when you ask people not to be people, they revert to bad, mob-like behaviors.”

~Jaron Lanier

“To be a member of such a crowd ... is not much to be far removed from solitude; the freedom of everyone is assured by the freedom to which everyone else lays claim.”

~Remy de Gourmont

“Don’t you understand? When you’re standing on their side, you’re the bizarre genius, the miraculous hero, the force of the rebellion, the flower that blooms alone. But the second your voice differs from theirs, you’ve lost your mind, you’ve ignored morality, you’ve walked the crooked path.”

~Mo Dao Zu Shi