There is a movement happening in America…
All across America young Black people are articulating the damage, the pain, the fear, the lynchings that come with being one of the backs upon which this white supremacist nation was built. It is important that we all bear witness to this pain. If you are Black, it is essential that you open yourself to the pain you push behind your mask so that you can function in this society. That pain needs to be released. It it needs to be spoken. You will find power in its utterance. In articulating your own humanity, in flaunting it in front of the very society that denies it, you will find a type of individual freedom from which is the raw material for our collective liberation.
If you are not-Black then you need to bear witness to this pain. You need to force yourself to see the humanity of the Black myn and womyn who are mourning their own deaths. You need to force yourself to understand that this pain is not new just because you haven’t heard it before. It will not go away until we as a nation can come to terms with the Blackness of 36 million Americans. It will not go away until the descendants of slaves and sharecroppers no longer have to wonder what their role is in their own nation. It will not go away until we recognize the humanity of all Black people despite class, nation of origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, ability or criminal records. It will not and cannot go away until you understand that #blacklivesmatter.
If we as a nation cannot all agree on that simple fact we can never be whole; we can never heal this gaping wound across our nation. This festering sore that is one of America’s foundational sins will continue to grow, to ooze and to infect every institution of our nation. Yet no longer will this infection be contained to Black bodies. No longer will Black people be the ones who bear the weight of their oppression by shucking and jiving on the razor thin edge of white racial sensibilities. No longer will we let the tonnage of white racism sit on our chests, crushing us slowly while we pretend it isn’t there. If this movement is anything it is a promise that if we can’t breathe, you can’t breathe.
Get off the fence. Join the struggle.
The Well Examined Life 
I think you are wrong. This is not just a time for everyone to sit back and let black people express their pain. I think that by buying into that, this movement is going to head nowhere fast. There is racism threaded throughout the fabric of this country, and because black people are willing to claim this as their issue alone, they are still working within that paradigm.
You can check the statistics. Black men of a certain age are the demographic most likely to experience police violence. Native American men, however, are the demographic most like to experience police violence at any age. Those stories are not making it to air. Native Americans also have the highest rates of suicide, the highest rates of poverty, the highest rates of school drop-outs. In this country, black people are scarcely treated as human. Native Americans are treated like the mongrel dog tied up in the backyard, begging for scraps. Hell, you can carry around a fake Native American head impaled on a stick, complete with dripping fake blood, and as long as you say it’s sports related, no one will give it a second thought. But it’s not just Native Americans. Look at the statistics related to the poverty and health levels related to migrant workers. Or what is happening with economically-vulnerable young women and the sex trade. Hate crimes against gay men.
I’m not trying to say that these issues are more important that the ones you are describing. What I am saying is that, right now, the black community has a voice, and people are listening. There are others in the country who hardly have a voice. Hell, while white America fears the black man, they don’t even acknowledge other groups. And this is an opportunity. Black America could take this moment to chant for themselves and to chant for others who are not heard. Imperialist, patriarchal white America has hurt all of us, and they continue to hurt us because they convince us that we are all alone in our pain, and in doing so, they are also able to convince other white people that racism and privilege is a perception that exists only in the minds of POC.
So you are wrong that if you are not black, you just need to sit back and bear witness on this. You are wrong to think that black people are alone. I might even go so far as to call it myopic. A better call to action is not to push everyone away, but rather to call upon all those peoples who are ready to help rail against the heavy arm of white oppression.
Black Lives Matter, and their voices undeniably deserve their day. But this is an opportunity I feel you are urging people to miss. The pain we all feel is not some made up excuse, and it’s not something we should continue to stay silent about. I think all need to open up that dialogue. I think that Black people may be the group that is best equipped to change the way this country treats all POC, by being the ones that welcome others to the table, instead of pushing them away.
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I am sorry you think that. I am sorry you feel so strongly about it as to call my ideas myopic. I do however appreciate you taking the time to listen to my piece. I will say, the last thing I wrote in the intro was “get off the fence, join the struggle” so I am confused as to why you think I meant “sit and bear witness” to mean more than “listen to this for 22 minutes. I thought this piece was clearly defined as a call to action for everyone but I might be wrong. Lastly, it is not my place to speak to all forms of oppression. You seem to discount the many powerful voices of indigenous and first nation people across the continent. They do not need me to speak for them. The idea that the way to make other races less invisible is to put a Black face on it doesn’t seem to hold water in my view. I would suggest you read blogs by other people if you want to hear their pain articulated. They are numerous any many are far more interesting than mine. If you think they are not getting the exposure they deserve then I would suggest you share them with your friends or donate money to them. Asking me to stop articulating my pain so as to articulate theirs helps no one. Have a nice afternoon, thanks for stopping by.
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