I joked on Twitter this morning that my new morning routine is “wake up, get breakfast, write 2,000 words explaining to white people why/how Black people are human, clean catbox.”

But it’s really not a joke.

For various reasons, I would be a bigger burden than a help to my fellow protestors on the ground. So that’s not my lane. My lane in this fight is to educate other white people – and as a professional writer who does at least 5,000 words a day out of sheer habit, I can easily do it.

In case you need some quick answers to share with white people, here’s a few I’ve done so far:

The Same Old Nonsense

How can Floyd’s death be motivated by racism if Alexander Kueng is African American?

Because individual Black people can participate in a system that perpetuates and enforces Black oppression.

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George Floyd and Derek Chauvin are examples in a pattern, perpetuated by a system. You can replace Floyd’s name with the names of literally dozens of black people who were killed by police during a routine police encounter and Chauvin’s name with the names of literally dozens of cops who got away with it, and the story is the same.

The protests are happening because people will no longer stand for the system.

 

Why do a lot of black people get offended when they see the “All Lives Matter” hashtag? Why do they believe other lives like brown people and Asian people’s lives don’t matter?

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Black people are the most likely of ANY racial group to die during a routine police encounter.

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Black people don’t think other POC or White people should be murdered by police instead of Black people. They think no one should fear for their lives during a routine police stop.

And since they have more to fear, they are also the angriest and loudest about making these lynchings stop. That includes not letting White people get away with obvious lies like “All Lives Matter.”

 

The Protests and What Comes of Them

People in America are calling for the police force to be disbanded, is this a legitimate proposal and if so what would be the alternative? 

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At the very least, our current police departments might be disbanded and rebuilt on the model of countries whose law enforcement are tasked with first responder and deescalation duties, rather than supplied with leftover military toys.

 

Who is funding and organizing Antifa in the United States?

No one, because “antifa” isn’t an organization. It’s a political stance. Specifically, it’s the political stance that fascism must not be tolerated in human societies.

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“Antifa” is every person who has completely had it with fascist actions by authorities and will no longer tolerate them.

Proving There’s No Question Racism Doesn’t Touch

Can black people be autistic? Why does it seem that there are more autistic white people than autistic black people? 

There seem to be more white autistic people because:

• Autism diagnosis is expensive, and the money in the world is concentrated in the hands of white people,
• People qualified to diagnose autism tend to practice in wealthier, whiter areas,
• Black autistic children are more likely to be “diagnosed” by white people (not just doctors, but also teachers, cops, etc) as “defiant” or “troublemakers” or “uppity” than as autistic, because too many white people believe that anything but cheerful servileness from a Black child is proof of budding criminal intent.

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As so many Liberals now want to tear down the statute of R.E. Lee in Richmond, isn’t it true that his citizenship in the United States of America must first be revoked?

No. What? Seriously, I don’t follow the logic here.

“Being a US citizen” and “having a statue of you displayed in a public place” are not related qualities.

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The idea that you have to revoke the citizenship of a dead man – which the US doesn’t even have a legal process for, by the way – in order to take down a hunk of stone or metal purportedly shaped like him is baffling.

 

Why I Write About Racism

Do you consider yourself a privileged white person which the Black Lives Matter activists are claiming we all are?

Oh, absolutely yes.

One of my grad school professors was a Black woman who shares the same birthday I do. We’re in the same field, we took similar paths to get here, we have common academic interests, we live in the same city, we went to the same university. We’re even the same height!

And I have personally witnessed her having to deal with rudeness and mistreatment that I have never faced – rudeness that clearly implied she didn’t deserve her job/title/position/credentials because she is Black.

Nobody has ever implied or stated that I didn’t deserve my job/title/etc. because I am White.

My life hasn’t always been easy, but nobody is ever going to look at the color of my skin and use it as an excuse to treat me the way this country treats Black people every single day.

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I’m sending 100% of my book royalties and website tips to bail funds from now until we see real changes in policing nationwide. Please also share this post on social media.