✡️ Josh Shahryar  ☪️Verified account

Even if you THINK you're not an active participant in our oppression, you are. By just being White. Unless you actively oppose it.

Not voting for Trump is not enough to earn my trust. Not when every minute on this soil brings a fresh hell for us - and for your benefit.

How can we trust you when you do little as every passing day, we're having the life choked out of us so YOU can live a better life?

I'm not gonna pull a blanket of distrust over all Whites. I'm not there... yet. But I'm not gonna pull a blanket of trust over y'all either.

You wanna know if I trust you or not, my White friends? Then sit the fuck down and take stock of your actions since November 8.

Take a pen and paper because you're gonna prove to yourself whether you are worthy of my trust or not. I promise, this won't be long.

Write down every protest or direct action that you've been to for people who are not White. Every single one.

You don't have to write anything if you are not able-bodied. I understand how shamefully inaccessible most direct action events are.

Next, write down every penny that you've paid for a cause that was for the benefit of PoC. Or trans folks. Or differently abled folks.

Again, write nothing if you're struggling with poverty. It's hard being poor and I'm not holding you up to standards I don't hold me.

Now, write down the names of fascist family members and friends you've talked to since the election about their hatred and bigotry.

Write nothing if you face the threat of violence or loss of VITAL financial or emotional support from them by critiquing them.

Great job! I hope by now if you're able-bodied, semi-well-off, and not dependent on fascists for your livelihood, the page is full!

If you ran out of space and needed another page, *HUGS*. BUT, 12" Times New Roman with 1 inch margins, plz. And single-spaced.

Some of you are doubtless staring at a blank or almost blank page. Your eyes welling up with tears... "Oh god, I have failed you."

No worries, my friendo! Maybe I find it hard to trust you right now. But you have time. Get busy right now! Use your privilege for me!

Donate to stop our oppression. Show up to end it. Talk to your fascist friends and family. Write that shit down. FILL THOSE PAGES!

And the more pages you fill with that information, the more you can be assured that I will be trusting you more and more.

Think of my trust as a jar and your actions to stop our oppression as drops of water. You won't fill that jar up with words. Sorry. ACT.

I know it's hard to read this as a White person. To feel like you're being judged. That your Whiteness is in a sense disqualifying.

Now, compare that to how we're feeling. How we're being judged. How we're automatically disqualified. For NOT being White. From everything.

But remember, I mentioned that I won't hold you to standards I don't hold myself, right? I, too, have pages. I, too, write down my actions.

I am aware that I'm a man. Physically-abled. Cis. That the oppression of women, physically-disabled folks and trans folks are for MY benefit

I *KNOW* that I am documented. That I am not homeless. Most of all, I *know* that I'm a PoC, but I'm not Black. Those are my privileges...

And did I mention that I'm still a settler? On somebody else's land? Who were dispossessed? And went through generations of genocide?

Guess what? I pay to causes. I go to protests. I talk to family and friends who refuse to see the oppression of those less privileged.

I'm not just asking you to earn my trust. I, too, am working my ass off to earn the trust of communities whose oppression benefit ME!

To sum this up... I was at an event recently. Met a wonderful person. They were femme. It never got to me asking their preferred pronouns.

I always use "they" when talking about people I'm interested in or in something romantic or intimate... But it's important to specify this.

There I was. A cis-Brown dude... expressing interest in a Black femme. And they hesitated. I gently backed off. No assumptions.