I am a female, I do not need feminism because I will not be made or treated like a victim in requirement of reparation.

I am a white person, I will not be made a villain because my skin color is the same color as that of people who lived many generations ago.

People are the soul, not their gender, not their skin color. Stop acting as if gender and color has to do with the problem.

Yes, women have needed feminism in the past– we are now equal, we have been for several decades. The problem has moved on to equity, not equality. To make a woman think that she has/is something lesser in this day and age is harmful to her, and, in fact, putting her back into a box instead of setting her free. Both men and women can and should participate in ending such a problem, no one should be made to feel excluded or inferior from such an issue.

I am white. Yes, white people have done bad things in the past– but as a famous quote once said, the past should not define us, but the future we strive for, rather. I will not listen to someone tell me that because of something done two hundred, three hundred, or four hundred years ago, my skin color makes me a bad person, that my skin color because of something that happened back then, done by someone I never knew, means I have to atone for it now.

I won’t. Because that is the past. I will acknowledge that it happened and that it was wrong, that it must never happen again, but I will not be made to feel shame or guilt as if I am the person who did it directly and it happened just a few seconds ago.

No one is defined by something that happened a long time ago. But we are defined in our actions of how we respond, how we treat it, how we overcome it.

Fighting, quarrelling, name-calling, hatred, white guilt, obliterating history and thus forgetting about it, is wrong. Grow up, grow above it. Be better than that fear and wretchedness.

All people can do bad, horrible, awful, shameful things– REGARDLESS of gender and skin color.

This friction will only go away when we stop worrying about the past and begin focusing on one another kindly, in upbuilding manners. Hatred breeds like– so if you hate on a fellow person simply for some act by a generation that lived centuries ago, you achieve none of the goals you claim to strive for. If you hate all men because of the “patriarchy” and insult them and make them feel no more base than animals–why should they behave otherwise or change?

Instead of being cruel, be a good, decent, admirable, example. Stop screaming in the streets. If you include your sons and your daughters and teach them respect of a person as a soul, as another person who feels and thinks and dreams and hopes as they do, you will achieve more for your goals than brutal diatribes on social media and shrieking marches through streets or at rallies.

If this is a time of change, stop reverting to ancient traditions of behavior that incite and invite chaos; instead move for the calmness that engenders order and growth and positive change.

You might not think someone deserves respect, someone with archaic ideals or opinions, someone who you feel is insulting. But hate never wins against those sorts of people in the end–and their hate won’t pay either.

If you feel attacked, remember they most likely do too, because we are all souls with the same ability to feel physically and emotionally. We should stop being derogatory, stop being insulting and rude and disrespectful just because we think that the way somebody believes is less enlightened, or is inferior, to how we believe.

You will never achieve what you so dearly want as long as you continue to behave as uncharitably you do.

No one wants to listen to someone who insults them and derides their beliefs. No one wants to change when change looks thoroughly repulsive to them.

Please remember that, and let us cease it now.