Ethnic Minorities and People of Color

The legislation does concern me, yes, but the white complaints about it? I don't care what they have to say because I can't get over how common it is for white people to only care about injustice insofar as it goes after them personally.

I hear what you're saying. I think I reached this point in like, Spring of 2024 at the latest. And it was entirely because of that dynamic. Watching white and even so-called "radicals" rush to ignore genocide because they actually don't consider brown people human (again! They did this with Afghanistan and Iraq too, but this was so much worse!), well, that I should have expected. But to then in the very same breath act terrified that Trump was going to win and be a fascist just seemed selfish. Like ok white people, if you don't care about people being murdered in an open air concentration camp then don't suddenly expect people to care that you (and the rest of us) are going to get some more persecution at home. Be fucking consistent.

I mean, I was also basically frustrated with this dynamic: All of a sudden for the first time in their lives, many of these white people around me were grappling with fear that they were going to be directly persecuted by the government. I mean "they're going to put us in camps!" fear. That's something that the rest of us had to learn how to cope with as children. Grow the fuck up, white people. Or don't, but don't expect me to humor your childishness.

And I was so frustrated because I'd been trying to educate white people about the fascist threat for over a decade at that point, by pointing out the many ways the US government murders people abroad and persecutes immigrants domestically and was already putting immigrants in camps and cages and had been jailing black people to use for prison labor longer than I'd been alive, but most of my pleas for people to care about other people had fallen on [ableist language I won't say actually, because that ableistly ascribes to disability what is better ascribed to whiteness. My words fell on white ears]. I'd been called "psychotic" even for saying that this white american nativist movement was evil, was going to kill people, and needed to be treated as such. But now all of a sudden wouldn't you know it, Trump is fascist! The fascist threat suddenly looms out of nowhere! So we have to have to have to support Democrats to protect us from Trump! And if I pointed out that the Democrats were actively committing a holocaust right in front of our eyes, it was drowned out by "but the genocide will continue no matter who's in power! We're in danger! Save us!" I looked around. Was I alone in thinking this. I could be the odd one out and still be right, but if it was only me I should consider that maybe I was just wrong. But then other trans immigrant influencers I followed started saying it too: "Don't use our queerness to excuse genocide. Fuck Trump, but fuck Biden and Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole too." So no, it was (mostly) whiteness.

It sent a clear message: Oh, they have no solidarity. They don't actually care about fascism. They don't actually care about systemic violence being done to people. They just care about themselves. All those years when I had solidarity with oppressed white people meant nothing to them, because they just wanted to take but never give. And I stopped being able to care or respond in emotionally supportive ways. Friends would confide in me "I'm really scared, what if they try to round us up?" and all I could say was "welcome to the club, how do you think they treated Muslims here? But even then, most people didn't get caught up in the dragnet so you're probably going to be fine and shouldn't worry so much, it's needlesly stressing you. Here's what helped me cope and not stress so much, maybe it'll help you: "If they come for me, I won't die alone, but til then I'm not going to torment myself worrying about a day that may never come." I was trying to share my hard-won wisdom and help people not have to reinvent the wheel. But these ingrates didn't appreciate it.

It reminds me of what I find so funny about HP Lovecraft's writing, actually: the white supremacist attachment to being at the top and suddenly finding out they're not. For Lovecraft's characters, it was because there were older and more ancient powerful civilizations that predated Mankind. For Lovecraft himself, it was similar, except he was losing his shit about nonwhite cultures. For these people, it's finding out that their whiteness will not protect them from other white people.

idk, it's probably not the best thing for solidarity-building to vent those feelings but this is an EMPOC only space. And on the other hand, I'd really like to see white people who are relatively new to being systemically oppressed to this extent account for their position and maybe with a bit of humility say "I'm freaking the fuck out about possibly being on a government kill list, can those of you who've already had to grapple with this help me cope?" instead of "so y'all need to listen to me when I tell you that the best way to protect me is to throw your comrades under the bus".