I cannot speak for others, but I’m simply exhausted by how labor intensive you are. And I mean you — literally. Understand that, and you understand everything.

You keep coming across material that makes you feel as if Medium is a haven for White scorn. I get that. I don’t fault the feeling either. But let’s unpack that.

This author shared an experience. You pushed her damage aside completely. Completely. Not one word about how her world felt. Words and words and words about how you felt by her sharing her world with others.

Words dedicated to Elyse Cizek’s Feelings: 2; “you.” Twice.

Words dedicated to Otwrate’s Feelings: 3,242.

You ignored HER experience, but shared YOURS.

Why? Share your experience, I mean?

Didn’t you JUST establish “who gives AF what you’re going through” is a reasonable response?

Didn’t you just illustrate the most important thing as between your feelings and her feelings are your feelings?

Now this is the best part: didn’t you just make it unambiguously clear that venting to her about a trend by those with whom she shares traits is perfectly ok even when that venting doesn’t particularly target her for what she has done here?

And this next one is a serious question: who needs a person like you in his or her life? I mean that. A person in his or her community? His or her relationships of choice? His or her side of the hemisphere?

And it only gets worse: not only did you come to her house, read her title at least, show disdain to her and her experience, she. Wasn’t. Even. Speaking. of You. And still, you felt owed some perverse right to umbrage-entitlement.

And as if it could get no worse, you sink further still. A rally of 10K+ Loserpaloozas (credit Cocoa Griot) who L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y. shit in the halls of the United States Capital then smeared said shit across its walls because they wanted to “return to a past when white men saw themselves as the core of America and minorities and women ‘knew their place,’” and it is in the condemning of THIS, in the refusal to self-absolve through distancing that you make your stand?! And — Jesus please bless this poor soul — your stand is condemnation of the racist trend she appears to be continuing.

OK. Otwrate, here is the best gift anyone will give you this year: you aren’t worth it.

You aren’t a relationship worth fighting to save. You aren’t worth the effort to consider your perspective. You aren’t worth the sacrifice of time and emotion to push through, should there be jewels hidden deeply that pull it together in the end.

You are too much work. You want too much. You give too little. You care about her not at all. You accept too much of the abuse heaped on her. You tolerate too little of even a dusting on you.

You are the spider that sucks the poor creature who ventures too close dry. The spider gets everything. The creature is dead. And a world without having ever been aware that the spider existed is bested only by the paradise of heaven.

And if, by some twist of reason, I have failed to make this clear, the worst stomp off in the world is the one where the speaker is happier you are finally in her rear view mirror.

Why have I gone through this trouble, especially after having said that you are not worth it? Because I am tired. We all are.

You’ve been told — well, at least White Americans have — for far too long that they are too valuable to risk offense. They never tested the premise, nor ever permitted it to even been discussed, let alone challenged. And while it is not at all universally true, enough many believe it so vehemently they become cruel and even violent at raising a potential “White Rules” overreach.

Black America has tried and tried and tried to figure out how to share space with our brethren. How to co-exist — harmoniously — as compatriots of equal standing. We have begged. We have counselled. We have demurred. We have raged. We have debated. We have suffered. And suffered. And suffered.

And at the end of the day, there is a groundswell of White America — large and loud — demanding our subjugation. There are mobs so condescending and so arrogant that they look you in the eye — with all sincerity — and threaten your existence, your happiness, your livelihood, your success, your safety if you do not bow down.

• Be grateful, “learn how to better respect allies,” if “you want real change.”
• “It is your time Catherine to voice your pain and when you are done, remember you will need the white folks to cooperate . . . If you succeed in burning that bridge, the black minority will be even more isolated. Your only chance to get out of this is conversation.”
• “You are shouting ‘Go ahead: make my day!’ at an opponent who can easily crush you. Spitting in the faces of those who injure you only motivates them to injure you more.”
• “The real privilege is yours. You are allowed to think like this without fear of retribution.”

And these are our “friends” and “champions.” And finally, when a mob of 10, 20, 30 thousand storm the seat of national government demanding homage because “white men in particular stand at the apex of power, holding their ‘rightful position’ over women, nonwhites,” I tap out. Enough.

No.

Do what you must, but no.

Rage as you must, but no.

Threaten as you must, but I said goddamn mother fucking absolutely no. Leap, frog, or shut up. Whatever McCrackin you’re bringing, step to it. I’m all done with the dirty dance.

I mean, after all, what’s the worst you can do? Rape me, steal my kids, erase my entire identity such mine are the only people on the face of the planet a mere four centuries of ancestry? Are you going to hire others over me? Cal me names? Shoot me in the streets? Follow me in stores? What???

I’m tired. You win. Go then. I will not bleed, silent and invisible, for another second longer.