Fuck Tolerance
I tolerate the smell of kitty litter. I tolerate the line at DMV, a fart on a plane and tabloids at the checkout counter. I tolerate a mild toothache.
Fuck tolerance.
Being tolerated is not better than being actively persecuted — it’s just slower. Being tolerated fills one up with internal shame, a sense that one shouldn’t have been born, a sense that one’s presence on this world is unwanted. Being tolerated kills you slowly.
Fuck tolerance.
Tolerance assumes that you get to decide if I should be tolerated or not — if my right to marry should be tolerated, if my right to use the goddamn bathroom should be tolerated. Tolerance is a roomful of White men deciding on women’s reproductive rights. Tolerance is White people being “kind enough” to let Black children into “their” schools.
Fuck tolerance.
Tolerance is White liberals magnanimously saying that Colin Kaepernick should be ‘allowed’ to kneel — without taking a second’s pause to discuss Emantic Bradford, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Stephon Clark or dozens of other Black people killed by police — the whole reason Kaepernick is kneeling.
