White Privilege Almost Toppled Democracy

Haiku ⇣

color of your skin

determines how they treat you

in our capital

Justice in America depends on your skin color

✔︎If you are Black, officers can kill you in your sleep and walk away free — Breonna Taylor

✔︎Officers can shoot you in the back seven times and walk away free — Jacob Blake

✔︎Officers can strangle you to death and walk away free — George Floyd

meanwhile…

White people have the right to be violent in America

✔︎They can hunt Ahmaud Arbery and shoot him to death.

✔︎They can endanger the lives of millions by refusing to wear masks.

✔︎They can blow up a neighborhood on Christmas morning.

✔︎They can break into the Capital and demand that Senators stop counting votes.

✔︎They can kill at protests and be deemed heroes. — Kyle Rittenhouse

✔︎They can kill 9 churchgoers and police give them hamburgers — Dylann Roof.

✔︎They can kidnap a Governor.

✔︎White people have the right to enslave Black people without ever apologizing or offering restorative justice.

✔︎White people have the right to kill Indigenous people, steal their land, and smile in their faces.

✔︎White people have the right to put kids in cages just because they are Brown.

✔︎White people have the right to be ignorant — dismissing the cries of injustice.

I have to stop writing this list because it will never end.

Yesterday, The President of the United States incited an insurrection. White supremacists stormed the capital, attempting to stop the certification of the election results. They did not fear consequences because they are white — this is white privilege. And, as long as white people deny their privilege, this country will continue to circle the drain.

I am so tired of the calls for unity, which take a deep dive into bothsiderism. There are two sides, but each side does not present a good faith argument. We can argue about policies, but not human rights. We can agree to disagree about religion, but not homophobic and racist religious exclusion. We can agree to disagree about the weather, but not about Black Lives.

America will never change until people admit that it must. And, as long as people pretend that white supremacists have a good faith argument, the nonsense will continue. Donald Trump was the symptom of conservatism.

Sorry, not sorry. Look, I’m all for family values, but not for dismissing a woman’s right to choose. I’m all for loving my husband, but not for preventing women from marrying other women or men from marrying men. I’m all for respecting law enforcement, but not for protecting their rights to kill Black men, women, and children. We need accountability — there are no two sides to that.

I’m all for watching the deficit, but not while Americans starve to death. I’m all for defending our borders, but not by throwing toddlers in cages. I’m all for supporting our troops, but not as they kill innocent people overseas. I’m all for conservation, but not in conserving a racist system. We have to call it what it is — conservatism got us here.

When they oppose anti-lynching legislation, criminal justice reform, reparations, and restorative justice for Indigenous people, they aim to conserve white supremacy. Why are there two sides to this? Why are people clinging to a concept that serves no one but white, wealthy men? If we had two reasonable parties making good-faith arguments, I could understand being a conservative. At this point, it is synonymous with racism for me. I don’t see how anyone can be living in the same reality I am and think there are two sides to the issues I presented.

I’m not sorry if I alienated you with my poem because I must speak my peace as a writer. I did not edit this because I am angry and hurt by a country that never respects Black lives but always puts white men on a pedestal. When the heat calms down, they will make excuses. Already, conservatives are jumping off the ship. But it is too late. I and many like me see them for who they are — dangerous white supremacists.

They are the same group who fought to maintain slavery as Confederates, the same who fought to keep segregation, and the same group of Americans who supported and continue to support Donald Trump’s administration. Remember, most white voters wanted him to stay in power — that’s conservatism in a nutshell.

We can agree to disagree, but not about reality and human rights. If that makes me a radical, then so be it. I will radically stand on the side of the Civil Rights Advocates who came before me. I will never acknowledge that conservatism has a place in American politics. We should be having a conversation about how we should change, not conserving a broken system.

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The author Allison Gaines is the founder of Justice Can’t-Wait: