maarnayeri:

While I’m on the topic, let me just say.

This isn’t a basic “revolution” happening in Baltimore. This uprising is entirely due to oppressive conditions (on a social, political, economical and environment scale) against black people, which have prompted black people to resist. Against black people, by black people. 

If you’re not black, you need to understand your place in this struggle. It is not for you to offer unsolicited advice. It is not for you to shamelessly gawk at and salivate over to fulfill some disingenuous leftist aesthetic. Is it not for you to become senselessly voyeuristic and speak over the perspectives which matter most. It is not for you to dabble and theorize about. It is not for you to pretend to be impacted on any level other than empathy, solidarity and recognizing how oppressive standards interlock. 

There are people detained, beaten, killed and lives ruined, and they will be black. I can’t go over how to gut wrenching it is to see other black people suffer this way and knowing that time and distance is the only difference from it happening to me, my friends, family and community. Our physical and mental health is impacted by this. To see posts and tweets and rallies strip the pain, fear and rage that only black people can feel about antiblack state violence is in itself, an alternate form of violence.

So, in short, stay in your fucking lane.