A Wake-Up Call:

To My People, The European American

We've been sitting in a station of privilege. For a long time.

We have made excuses for the worst things on the planet.

We made excuses for school shooters. They were lone wolves. They were depressed. A girlfriend broke up with them. They were failing.

Photo by Aliaksei Semirski

We made excuses for people who kill their partners. They were cheating. They just wanted them back. She antagonized him.

We made excuses for mass shooters. Their life just wasn't going right. It's just a one-time thing.

We tell ourselves these things aren't connected.

We made excuses for police killing citizens. It's their job to protect us. If they just would have complied. They shouldn't have had a weapon. They shouldn't have run.

We made excuses for what our community has done across the globe. We're just protecting democracy. Their leader was a dictator. Weapons of mass destruction. Communism.

We made excuses for how we've treated the planet. We need convenience. It's my property. I can do with it what I want. I didn't know. You're ridiculous.

We made excuses for how we've treated children. They're just little. They don't know anything. They're resilient. Oh, that's just Uncle Joe being touchy-feely.

And we made excuses for the atrocities we've enacted on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other people of color on this very soil.

Oh, they're just animals. Oh, they need someone to take care of them. They live in huts. They're not very smart. They're only 3/5 human. They should go around the back. They don't deserve justice. Oh, they're just wild. They have no infrastructure. They didn't even have the wheel. It's not safe for their children. If we just tame them, take the nature out of them. Oh, they're criminals. They came here illegally. They're taking all our jobs. They get free healthcare.

And when we look at this list…

This long, terrible list of things we've done to other human beings…

We never see it for what it is.

It's a cry for help.

We are crying out loud. For the things we've given up. For the people we've lost. For the things we don't have access to. For being disconnected from our land, from our own humanity.

This is a crime. An outward, violent, cruel, cry out loud.

This was a hard thing for me to realize. It's a hard thing to look inside. It's something I have to do often.

It isn't guilt or blame that I'm looking for. It's not shame. It's not hate.

I'm looking for your humanity. For others…For our planet…For yourself….

I want to hear European Americans love themselves. To know that they deserve justice too. Not from anyone else, but from each other.

But we also have to give it. It has to be reciprocal. We need justice from one another. And we need to take responsibility for our healing.

We need a place where we can speak the truth. We're allowed to be offended by someone else's truth. That doesn't mean their truth is any less true. It doesn't mean that yours isn't. We need to speak the truth about how we've shown up in the world.

This is the wake-up call. The crying has to stop. The real healing has to start.

Thank you to Desireé B Stephens Royal Star Allah Taz J Matthew Reynolds and so many other educators for continuing to light the way.