We're tired. By we, I mean black people. We are tired, we are fucking tired! Stop killing us! Stop gaslighting us about the fact that we are being killed. Stop villainizing murder victims. Stop living in an imagined state of superiority, so that we can just be. 

I stopped watching/listening to the news a long time ago. In this confusing time, I have to control the way that I ingest the goings-on of today's world. I am not uninformed, I just choose to read the news without the spin of what televised media outlets decide to put on it, especially in regards to our community. We could be a child minding our own business, a woman asleep in her bed, a man enjoying a run, or a man simply bird watching; the one thing we all have in common is that our lives could be ended by ANY white person at any time. The other common theme is that WE will most certainly be painted as a miscreant after we're murdered, with our dead bodies splayed across almost every newspaper, videos being shared across all social media outlets as modern-day lynching’s, while the actual perpetrator rarely ever suffers any consequence. 

As if 2020 isn't already a clusterfuck and this pandemic isn't hampering our lives as a whole, White people still won't rest if they can't assert their dominance over Black people. And when we react, we're wrong. When "Amy Cooper" runs into a black man that knows his rights and immediately begins to record their interaction because he knows where he lives and who he is, he's a threat. When Karen-Amy puts on her scared White woman voice, the world is supposed to stop and come to her aid, but when we're MURDERED, where is our aid? Where is the empathy and sympathy? When a scared Black man is screaming; "I can't breathe" while simultaneously dying; who is helping us? Stop fucking killing us. We, just like you, are trying to navigate our way through this time and remain alive. COVID-19 is impacting our community in alarming ways, and white people seem to be in direct competition with the virus to see who can kill us off quicker. Maybe a month ago, white women were crying about being called "Karen" in a derogatory manner, going as far as likening it to the "N-Word". Bitch, please. Is it clear to you now Karen, that your false fear could mean life or death for us? These situations are truly ironic because oftentimes when you're; (White people); screaming that you're afraid, you are the aggressor in the situation. If a rationally thinking person feels threatened, their first reaction would be to retreat, however; what these videos show countless times is that we are minding our business, and when these white women demand something from us that we are not obligated to fulfill, be it stop BBQing, stop questioning them, or just stop fucking BEING and we don't obey, they are incensed! Leave us alone.  I am tired. We are tired. Stop gaslighting us about the fact that we are being killed. Stop villainizing murder victims. Stop fucking killing us.

T.Nicole