As I’ve said a lot among friends, if black people were as violent as white people think we were, this entire shit would have been burned to the ground long before I was even born.

But we’re not, no matter how many dogs get sicced on us or hoses are sprayed at us, or tear gas canisters are thrown at us, rubber bullets shot, fully armed to the teeth cops being intimidating, we don’t bite back.

(sure, there have been riots, but never in direct response to being threatened, and aren’t the focus of this post)

We have been insulted to our faces, told our hair isn’t acceptable, our skin too dark. White supremacists burn crosses, ride confederate flag festooned trucks past our children’s birthday parties, walk in our neighborhoods openly carrying their guns, mock our dead, and very rarely do these people get popped in the fucking mouth.

And it’s not just black folks. Due to the recent attacks in Beirut and Paris, people are tripping over themselves to see who can be the biggest Islamaphobic douchenozzle.

Then act surprised when white people start fucking with anyone in a hijab or on a prayer mat. Mosques and Muslim owned businesses have been vandalized and anyone wearing a scarf on their head is a potential target for verbal or physical abuse by complete strangers.

And through it all, there is no retaliation.

I could go on with examples; pro-choicers NOT going after pro-lifers in the wake of violence, queer people NOT going after straights after a bashing, and so on and so forth. You wanna know why?

Think about what that would look like. Especially in the media, who looks for just about any excuse to demonize the opressed. Already keyed up bigots, who who only need little reason, no matter if true or not, wanna act out so badly.

I’m gonna quickly point out here the desperation of white racists to start a Race War by taunting black people in so many ways, waiting for us to respond in kind, so they can go “see, these niggers ARE violent and dangerous”, and justify killing us. It’s quite literally the “I’m not touching you” game that ends up in someone getting hit.

And deep down, we all know that. So we refrain. We act with peace. We may make a fuss, but we don’t go eye for an eye.

We can’t go eye for an eye.

And you need to understand what a further burden that is. To be taunted and abused and knowing damn well you can’t respond in kind. You have to be the bigger person while bigots get to act all kind of ways.

That is some hard shit. We need our allies to know that. So the next time you want to say something like “Well, if that was me, I would…”, stop and think.

And then shut the fuck up.