Dear White People: Here’s Why You Should Consider Paying Reparations (Seriously, hear me out.)

The past was undeniably ugly, but we can’t move forward until you’re willing to atone and commit to change.

There are countless examples of the cruel and inhumane treatment from slavery and colonialism that I could list here today to convince white people to atone for the transgressions of their ancestors.

However, showing pictures of King Leopold mutilating Black people in the Belgian Congo….

or the slave prisons up and down the West African coast (with inches of human remains and defecation covering the floor btw)…

…rarely seem to pull on your heartstrings enough to spark a change.

So, I’m not going to play the ancestor card. I’m going to take a different perspective on why I believe white people should pay reparations and fundamentally change this system.

To put it simply, this current system you have is very broken, and it’s taking a toll on all of us — especially on you and your mental health.

You’re burning out, and we can’t keep going on like this.

White people (though often not explicitly stated) spend exorbitant amounts of time, money, and resources trying to maintain a good image and reputation — an effort unmatched by other groups until they actually had to match your level of effort.

Whether its lobbying politicians to ban Black historical accounts and literature (some good reads are Mark Mathabane’s “Kaffir Boy” or “The Sybils” by Mama Zogbe btw) or using PR and other methods to influence school curricula to niche certain details about our history (like the fact that the Civil War was indeed a war about slavery and not about the Southern economy.) — the effort to maintain these perceptions on your part is truly immense and exhausting, something that naturally complicates your life.

The point is — white people are the biggest influencers around, caring more about their image in some aspects than they do their own quality of life.

And despite trying to wield this influence to justify why they should get to continue to hoard onto all of those ill-acquired generational resources they’ve accumulated through exploiting the Black underclass, and unfair systems like slavery, redlining, gerrymandering and Jim Crow, there’s still one thing that’s often forgotten:

Just as Black people are tired of nagging white people about racism and colorism, white people are exhausted by this situation as well — perhaps equally so — although much of this exhaustion is largely self-induced on their part.

You’re exhausted from spending vast amounts of finite resources and mental bandwidth trying to keep this system running, trying to tactfully plan for and falsely convince people (perhaps even yourselves) with every euphemism in the book, that you’re not engaging in antisocial and exploitative behavior towards darker populations.

There’s so much soul-breaking effort on your part to set people up with false expectations of your behavior towards minority groups; to maintain that false image, to deal with the hits to your integrity and that overall moral injury — all instead of simply changing the wrongful behavior/system in the first place.

You’re hurting yourselves just to hurt black people!

If we’re being honest, all the money and effort splurged over the generations trying to bury those past transgressions, maintain that false narrative, hide your harmful behavior, and party away as if none of the former was a valid concern could have paid reparations ten times over.

Which brings us back to a pretty sad reality: White people are more concerned with projecting the image of diversity, peace, and racial progress than actually trying to achieve it. As if they don’t truly want a real cooperative, constructive, positive, and mutually supportive relationship with Black people — as long as they can make it “look” as if they’re doing that.

Decade after decade, century after century, the more aware Black people have to sit back and painfully watch as you try to use any sort of leverage necessary to gaslight/control people, run from your lies, and buy your way out of accountability, time and time again.

We have to sit back and painfully watch as your words and the words of your children (since you failed to remedy and fix this situation for them) continue to lack integrity because despite your claims, your maintenance and continuation of this exploitative and unsupportive system for Black people proves that it’s all just an empty promise.

Our current system was founded on the premise that Black people would have to be continually denied support and humanity so that their exploitation (and the exploitation of other predominantly non-White countries similarly) could continue to support and fuel this country’s prosperity — siphoning the vitality and health of marginalized groups, again and again, to do so.

Even though we no longer see the blatant physical abuse and inhumanities of the past, the systems in this country (both then and now) are designed not to support Black people. Despite the cosmetic changes that you’ve made, at the core, the underlying structure still remains the same — it still dictates that same function.

You’re still holding onto blood money, still exploiting black countries and lives thinking that it can pave the way towards your good relationship with black people and your kids into the future — as long as you can use that PR as a crutch to mask the fact that you don’t want to change the foundational defects of this system.

We’re still living this today, through the continued economic disparities, low-wage jobs, poor working conditions and catch 22’s that still disproportionately affect Black people’s development in this country.

This dynamic of exploitation is still the same as it was in the past; it’s just manifested in a different form. This system continues to operate on principles that continue to incrementally disadvantage black people the darker their skin gets.

So please understand that as white people: The reparations are just as much for you as they are for Black people.

You’ll never be able to outrun your own lies and behavior unless you change. You’ll burn out trying to cover your tracks, and then each generation after you, your children, your grandchildren, and so on, will have to waste way their lives doing the exact same thing in order to maintain this facade.

Without you changing the behavior and teaching your children to do the same, every following generation will inevitably struggle with maintaining this façade until they inevitably slip up and reveal that same antisocial and aggressive behavior towards Black people that you’ve been desperately trying to hide.

Everyone agrees that you can’t keep continuing like this, and even with this seemingly beautiful system, people have grown tired and unhappy with this unnatural way of living.

The continuous cycle of burying and hiding the truth with money is ultimately futile in the long run because the truth will always resurface despite your persistent efforts.

Which means that, generation after generation, every single waking moment of your life, you will need to keep burning books, keep rewriting history, keep spending vast sums on PR/political campaigns, and keep resorting to authoritarian measures and extensive tactical planning to keep people from knowing a secret — that isn’t really a secret.

The best part is, once you successfully changed your behavior and the current unsupportive system for black people, you’re done. There’s no more need for reparations because there will be no more past and future transgressions. You can stop spending so much money on appearances and rather direct those funds towards your family and living a quality life that matters.

You’re exhausted. I’m exhausted. We’re all fricking exhausted.

Do us a favor: pay reparations (to actual, impoverished, dark-skinned people, not the bandwagoners), change your behavior, and make a more equitable system so that everyone is supported, and people won’t suffer if they choose not to go along with your carefully crafted narrative.

Best love,

One Black Girl on the Internet.