I Fear
Fannie Lou Hamer was a Black American activist and civil rights leader (1917-1977)
A letter from a 25 year old women worried about the trajectory of this country, fearful of the lack of empathy in people, and lost on how to help and make a difference. Also, an acknowledgment of my white privilege. I will never understand what it feels like to be judged, abused, starved, ostracized, or demonized because of the color of my skin.
I wrote this piece intending to use it as a voiceover for a social media video, but upon recording and editing the video, it felt a little insensitive in that format. I would still like to share my thoughts and how I've been feeling with all that’s been happening under the current US administration and the handling of civil conflicts throughout this country and beyond. From genocide in Gaza to famine in Sudan to unlawful deportation in the United States, our world is broken. There is a huge lack of empathy, compassion, and education, and I fear that nothing will get better until EVERYone decides to care.
But how do we make people care when racism and prejudice are older than all of us?
I Fear
I fear the world we are creating, or more accurately, the one we are allowing the men in power to create for us. While I make myself a cozy meal and sit in my safe home, I know there are so many people starving, scared, and fighting for their lives. People right down the street from me. People oceans away.
I know that while I benefit from the privilege of being born into a white middle-class American family in a beautiful, safe city, some were not dealt that same lucky hand.
Families are being ripped apart because a few powerful and greedy individuals said it is okay to demonize, blame, ostracize, kill, and disown those who don’t look like you, sound like you, act like you, play or cook like you.
At some point in history, someone in power said it was okay to hate and mistreat people who were different from you. And at some point in my history, all 25 years of it, I realized that a lot of what I have been told, taught, and shown is just that.
So I decided to care. Even when I was told not to.
I grew up in Southern California, close to the Mexican-American border, where we were often taught to fear Mexico and the people coming from it. To fear people who speak broken English. To fear people who stand outside hardware stores looking for work to feed their families.To fear people who use different spices in their cooking. The cooking we all love so much in this country and state.
Whether it was intentional or not, it doesn’t matter; I was subconsciously taught to fear the people who were different from us, rich white people of Southern California.
But now, as an adult, I find something else truly terrifying. I fear the Status Quo. I fear men in power who condone hatred. I fear individuals in my community who look the other way. I fear the fact that this isn’t just happening in this country but in so many around the world. I fear that while so many of us are sitting in our safe homes, eating our cozy meals, protected by our luckily bestowed white privilege, claiming, “Well, they shouldn’t have come here illegally…”, we are losing all hope for humanity.
There is no world where we all look and speak the same. There is no world where we all act and eat the same. There is no world without diversity. There is no America without immigrants.
There is no liberty and justice for all, without liberty and justice FOR ALL.
