I don’t think you get it.
When, with justified unrest turned on “high” outside your windows, you turn to tell me in your driveway that you “feel bad for not doing anything”.
That you are scared of phone calls and sending emails. Could you hear it? How heavily those words fell, covertly cloaked & dripping with privilege?

I don’t think you get it.

I don’t think you get it, when your chosen words, buried in bias and blinded by whiteness, cut like knives even from 2 hours away. How your chosen words pulled out tears of anger out of a friend whose pure existence is light, strength, and love.

Have you felt second-hand pain like that? Feeling someone else’s heart snap in your own body?

I don’t think you get it. How hard it is for them to speak up amidst “just joking”s and “that’s not what we meant”s, and “sorry they feel that way”s.
How often they want to. How often it’s a calculation of risk.

How easy we fail, cowering back into “comfort”, falling back on fragility.

I don’t think you get it. How important it is to try. Over and over, in any way you can. Because if you don’t, you’ve sold your soul to the oppressor. Discomfort is not dangerous. It is the catalyst of growth.

I don’t think you get it. The kind of anger that is hot. Wet. Scared. Shaking. Crystal clear & razor sharp. The anger that is at-wit’s-end, torn between being too scared, and far too tired to even bother to surface.

I DON’T THINK YOU GET IT! Just how your failure, and my failure!
Are the very sick roots of the problem, and just how important it is to SEE someone– truly see someone– without calling the Tone Police.

I don’t think you get it.
But I hope to God
that soon you will.