Once again, you have misjudged this land’s scornful disregard for Black lives. Especially, yes—especially for the Black woman. Save your long essays and circuitous arguments, for the truth is simple and unforgiving: this country, bound up in its myths of supremacy and entrenched in its own deep-seated fear, was never going to let a Black woman lead.
Why would it? You refuse to hear the Black woman beside you, the Black woman who works alongside you. You disregard her, talk over her, step around her, much as you have always done. When Black women are hurt, overlooked, left exposed in your circles and gatherings, you turn away and resume the easy chatter.
And yet, somehow, you expected your comrades, your allies, to let her lead? Tell me, where does that faith come from? Certainly not from the truth of our history. Certainly not from any deep-seated regard for her voice or her vision.
I am not here to cast stones. I am here to remind you of the price of your silence. The warnings, the pleas that you have ignored, those unheeded cries, they have a way of settling in the bones of a nation. They collect like stones, and now you find yourself slipping on the path built by your own indifference.
We have told you, time and time again, that the anti-Blackness we cry out against—the kind that makes you shift in your seat, look away, and talk in quieter tones when you think we’re not listening—is real. It is not a concept or a topic for debate; it is the air we breathe, the undercurrent in every interaction, every slight and every nod. Now, you stand in the harsh light of its consequences, and only now do you see what we meant. Only now do you understand that a community cannot grow where some would rather you remain invisible or silent.
And now, White folks and Latinos who call for unity and reconciliation, spare me the pleas of “we must come together now.” We’ve been asking you to listen, to see us, to know us. We’ve pleaded, we’ve fought, we’ve waited on your compassion and your courage. But the time for that is long past. Return to your own communities if that is where your comfort lies, and know that for some of us, the work of reaching out is over.
For those of you who listened, who honored the truth in our words and did the work to meet us as equals, I see you. I recognize you. But to the rest, your response now only confirms what I already knew: that too many of you are strangers to the struggles that define our lives, quick to mourn the moment and slow to act on the root.
You cannot will away white supremacy with goodwill and hopeful slogans. This is not an evil that you can charm with platitudes. And if the darkness grows thicker still, if the road ahead is lined with more and more camps and walls and dividing lines, do not say you were not warned.
