“I hear ‘progressive’ as my obituary.”

Silencing, stereotyping, and disregarding people of color – that’s not what “progressive” white people do, is it?

Many white progressives claim to be anti-racist allies. But there’s something very off with the way they often go about trying to prove that they’re not racist.

The problem can be hard to point out, because it’s often so subtle and insidious – and because these same “allies” frequently respond by centering themselves and their defensive feelings.

In this fantastic piece, poet J Mase III captures exactly what this feels like for people of color.

By translating what he hears when white people tell him they’re progressive, he points out what so many of us go through with white folks who care primarily about whether or not we see them as “nice” – “nice being the operative word, and far more important than justice.”

We really appreciate this – and we hope it can help people recognize that you have to be more than a complacent ally in order to change the racist systems we’re living with.

With Love,

The Editors at Everyday Feminism

Click for the Transcript When white people tell me they are progressive what I really hear is “yeah I smile real big at Black people on the bus sometimes” I hear “My vote really does matter” I hear “I like to listen to NPR on the weekend while tipping my Brown waiter 25% at brunch” HaHaHa What I don’t hear is familiarity I see red wine stained teeth pleading for me to see them as nice people Nice being the operative word and being far more important than justice My neighbor calls my new neighborhood in the Pacific Northwest “Paradise“ I hear “Genocide really does work“ I hear the sound of my sneakers tip toeing late at night as not to spook my neighbors’ whitest sensibilities I hear red and blue and yellow garden flowers I’ve never been allowed to lay my eyes on til now whispering that I truly am an intruder into my own home I hear Black Muslim teenager pushed off high school building I hear white silence I hear white noise Only the TV is the political system and I can’t reach in deep enough to turn it down I hear “We’re real progressive” I hear me screaming to be seen at white folks that only see nice That are more offended by my usage of the word fuck then the fact that the police pulled a gun on me last week for laughing too loud while Black I hear wasted sentiments of “I can’t believe that still happens“ I hear progressive as my obituary I hear white mouths spitting the politest of bullshit thinking their words alone must matter to me I see them eyeing me up wanting me to recognize them for their virtues but Anger is a fucking virtue It is a survival technique I forged the vilest of my ire with the help of my dead ancestors that Becky’s nice progressive grandparents killed off years ago I planted it far beyond Pluto So even the most committed of colonizers can’t gentrify it yet “I see no color” They spew while sitting In the whitest of board rooms In their ivory cul de sacs In their book clubs and preaching about white Jesus from their Sunday morning pews “We’re all working for the same thing“ they say while blocking the path to my entry I hear the median access to wealth for a white woman in the US is somewhere near $42,500 and that for a Black woman in the same country it is only 500 bucks Yet I hear progressives spending more time talking about their fragile white feelings and corporate candidates than the redistribution of their own stolen wealth I hear “Black people are so angry” I wear that shit like a vest Cause ain’t no one gonna tell me liberal fantasies ain’t dangerous I ain’t your Tulsa Oklahoma I ain’t your Saartjie Baartman I ain’t the Tubman on your $20 bill I’m still alive to call you on your shit And trust It Is My Duty To Fire Back Assalamualaikum

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J Mase III is a Black/Trans/Poet based currently in Seattle by way of NYC. He is founder of the trans & queer people of color talent agency, awQward. A full length copy of his book, And Then I Got Fired: One Transqueer’s Reflections on Grief, Unemployment & Inappropriate Jokes About Death will be out later this summer. To find out more about his work, find him on Facebook, Twitter, and of course, www.awQwardtalent.com!