Today is Tuesday, September 20th 2016. I woke up this morning with troubling news of an unarmed black man shot by a police officer.  The unarmed black man was Terence Crutcher, the place was Tulsa, Oklahoma. As a young black man I am alarmed by the careless attitude towards police shooting black men in America, our nation is desensitized to the killing and oppression of colored people. As a black man my reality is different than a white man. As a black man I am asking white people who desire to understand and help. To take time to comprehend and learn our struggles to the best of your abilities. Comprehending does not require you to relate your feelings of oppression and isolation. Comprehending requires you to listen and internalize the passion behind messages and conversations with those who are oppressed.

Thank you to white people who aim to understand their privilege and fight towards a leveled playing field. I do not aim to offend anyone. Being oppressed is very offensive though. To understand the struggle of being oppressed, you have to be uncomfortable. To understand you have to willing to put yourself in a vulnerable position. As a black child I was given no choice but to be prepared by my family to be in uncomfortable situations. I grew up as one of the only blacks in a school full of whites for a majority of my elementary education. I experienced the good and the bad. At times I experienced the opposite of racism, a term coined white guilt. White Guilt is defined as when an “individual or collective guilt is felt by some white people for harm resulting from racist treatment of ethnic minorities by other white people both historically and currently.” I am grateful to have experienced both positive and negative relations with white people. It has shaped me to believe in love and good people, instead honoring race over everything.

The recent New Jersey bombing along with the recent publicized police shooting of Terence Crutcher is revealing a noticeable amount of white fragility. White fragility is defined as “a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress be- comes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation.”

I have noticed that the recent protest of athletes towards the National Anthem has been a dart board for whites, to release the minute amount of racial stress that they are feeling in theses stressful times. The term White fragility covers every position except for the one that would lead to change. Starting a conversation. A conversation among all Americans can show similarities that would blow people’s minds. Communities could be built based off the strengths, talents, and skills of individuals within the community.

As Americans it would be very helpful to view each other as individuals, to view every new person with a clean slate. Bias’ are natural. But, stereotypes are not.