Some poetic prose and video art to express my feelings currently... Sorry to labor the point but white allies, your role currently is to introspect and then reflect those learnings to your fellow white man. Feel like I'm losing a whole lotta friendships currently because of that old white fragility teamed with my, previously seen as funny, eccentric, cool, gobshitery... Not so cool now seemingly...

IN MEDIA RES...

...and fyi, being conscious, in regards to race, racism, goes beyond simply saying 'I'm not racist, I don't agree with racism'. It's the difference between the ability to understand an idea, a concept; repeat a phrase - and being able to internalise what those words mean, analyse, evaluate and critique them. You only do that with an idea when that idea, concept actually means something to you. ANYONE can say Black Lives Matter and parrot fashion like come out with stock phrases, but REAL allies, people who genuinely see equality as important, rather than simply just the 'correct thing to believe in', will want to have something to say about it. Will want to unpick that shit in themselves and the white world which surrounds and protects them. Will want to balance the scales through action; not nods of sympathy but silence. Not banner waving, public displays of solidarity, but silence. Not looks of discomfort at the mention of race, but still, that silence, which reaches so far back into time, it whistles, like the howling of a she wolf at full moon. Burns the retinas of my soul like high noon to a drunkard..like daybreak inside a railway tunnel (MosDef).

And as this whiteness reigns down
Upon me
I (caught) half between
The shame of my youth
And the rage of my ancestory
Am soaked beyond merely skin
But I'm done drowning
In that elephant in the room
To be black is to be disabled
Your ancestors dun broke our backs
So YOU could win
I ain't Lilith bitch
This ain't my sin.

Race?
Ain't nothing but a construct
Of white supremacist ideology
"If we make them other, then...
Our consciences clean"
But you will NEVER be free
Or clean
Of the wrong doings
Of YOUR ancestry
Until you ...
Not only wave your banners
Full of that politicised zeal
But are prepared to actively and
Consciously bleed
From your soul out
Dig deep
Into that conscience
And retrieve
The will to really change.
Yourself first...

I see no colour -
Means you see it too clearly for your comfort
Rise above it -
Means you lack capacity to take responsibility
I'm not racist -
Means, you have not looked that deep
Can we not talk about this please? -
Means that there is no we...

And as this whiteness rains down
Upon me
I (bathed) in the tears of your
Compassionate heat
Feel something
But not quite free...