Thread by @aaronesque_

Feeling really anxious ahead of my dept's #strike4blacklives town hall. A thread:

I hate that we have to work so hard to get white people (and *too many* poc as well) to give a shit. It's why it was important to hold this town hall TODAY, since people might've just called it "a day off" and not done anything to educate themselves

I hate that I have to relive trauma just for the CHANCE that someone listening might understand what systemic racism is like when I tell them some of the shit I've lived through

I hate that sooo much of my success has come at the expense of my black, brown, and queer friends. Yes, oppression fucked me too but it is *my responsibility* to forever atone for the role *I played* as an oppressor as a kid. A bully, a sellout, a racist, a phobe. 3/?

I wish more of my black and brown friends growing up saw that too though! It wouldn't be so hard if fewer of my friends (the ones that *survived*) hadn't become Uncle Ruckuses

and the thing is, a LOT of my "luck" came from my chameleon skin that stays lighter if I avoid the sun, and the work I did to "fix" my Mexican accent. lol joke's on me, now I have an accent in 2 languages. 5/?

and another thing is that, no matter how shitty it feels to simultaneously be oppressed AND to have profited from oppression, black people still have it worse. 6/?

OBVIOUSLY there's a black person out there who's had it way easier than a lot of Chicanx folks out there, but it's a statistical thing. Pick a random black person and a random light-skinned Chicanx person, and the black person is likelier to be having a bad day/life 7/?

and yes, I say "light-skinned Chicanx" because latinx people can be black too, you racist. 8/10

So these are some thoughts I woke up with today. Most of them I wake up with almost every day, especially every time a black or brown person gets killed by our racist injustice system. 9/10

I want ALL brown people to acknowledge how they've profited from racism today during today's #strike4blacklives. Yes, latinx people are in concentration camps and I've suffered racism too, but that's STILL tiny compared to what black people inherit. #BLM #DefundPolice 10/10