You Don't Get to Decide When Oppressed Communities Stop Talking About Their Oppression

“It’s time for everyone to stop focusing on race and gender. The world would be a happier place if we just ignored skin colour and gender.” - Norman

I’m a walking, breathing carbon cut-out of my own privilege. When I pay for a dress, the teller doesn’t mistreat me for being white. When I go to a game park, the ticket office doesn’t insult me for being straight. When I walk in the city, nobody assaults me for being cis or shoots me for being black. Like every human, I’ve faced some tough challenges, but when I go out, I don’t have to pass for anything I’m not. Nobody stares at me for being white.

Still, Norman thinks it’s time for oppressed communities to stop talking about their experiences. Black folk should just be quiet because it’s time to stop thinking about race. Trans folk should just be quiet because it’s time to stop making everything about bigotry. Women should be silent because if we stop talking about the patriarchy, it will fix itself.

What Norman’s really saying is that racism and sexism aren’t the problem. Noticing racism and sexism is the problem. If we all sing kumbaya and talk about rainbows, bigotry will simply vanish automatically. Stop being so upset while I whip you with this sjambok. If you’d just stop telling me to stop, this sjambok situation wouldn’t be a problem. Besides, your oppression is inconvenient. Your suffering is ruining my mood, so kindly pretend that racism and rape culture have been eradicated, even if they haven’t.

I once experienced a severe leak in a rented cottage. My bathroom was steeped in water, but my landlord thought it could wait until he got back from holiday in a week’s time. No matter how often I told him I was wading in water, he was determined not to acknowledge the problem. It’s easy to call a leak unimportant when you’re living in a hotel room and spending your days seeing the sites, and so it is with Norman’s sunshine-and-roses lifestyle. He’s not willing to believe that you’re living under a foot of water. His life is just dandy. They leave chocolates on his pillow every night, so everyone should stop complaining.

Your trauma isn’t important. Only this pillow chocolate is important.

You can’t forgive an ongoing wrong. If people are still suffering from the effects of bigotry, there is nothing to forgive and no closure to be had.

Hell, even if the world was made of rainbows, it would be disingenuous to think you have a right to control what others talk about. It’s not up to you to decide which words come out of people’s mouths. It’s only up to you to decide to ignore them.

White people don’t get to decide when black and brown folk stop talking about racism.

Men don’t get to decide when women stop talking about rape culture.

Cis folk don't get to decide when trans folk stop talking about transphobia.

If you want to live a kumbaya life, you’re going to have to ignore a whole lot of people. It’s hard work to pretend that everyone’s life is exactly like yours, but it’s considerably harder to be the target of a hate crime. </understatement>

Others’ lives are not the same as your life. Many demographics are working through ongoing trauma, and their words are the only way they can connect with those who share their experience. Their healing is more important than your reading pleasure. If you want to kumbaya through life, take responsibility for the content you consume because telling others to be silent about their lives is like walking up to a complete stranger in a restaurant and telling them to order a different meal because you don’t want to look at their sushi.