I live in Baltimore. Although I physically live in a Black neighborhood, I exist and circle in the liberal White arts community. I have a lot of liberal White friends who espouse about economic disparities and class wars, refer to Black people as “they,” as in, “they would find a lot more in common with us if they would focus on the rich/elites” blah blah blah. As such, I have a lot of close-minded ignorant White liberal friends. I commented to my White roommate about how we were the physical representation of gentrification in our neighborhood, and how even in the year we had lived there we kept seeing more and more White people. And how I thought that was a shame, because the neighborhood was just as vibrant and safe before the White people arrived. And he got defensive, just as you describe in your piece. I was telling him HE was purposefully doing it by participating in a racist system.

But then, when conversations reach this point, I am often stuck. I do not want to be John Stewart bringing light to Black pain. Not because of the burden, or because of alienating my friends, or anything like that. But because I do not want to be another White person taking Black voices. I have read pieces similar to your own about how it’s important that Black pain be shared by Black voices, about how men like John Stewart steal the narrative because of their White privilege. It is because of my privilege I can have a voice in these matters, and that *angers* me. I makes me *angry* that when my other roommate, who is Black, brings up such matters he is the Angry Black Man. And that we can have private discussions about such things, but when I am in a room with two White men I either get literally talked over, or in order to be heard I have to steal Black narratives. That makes me upset.

It has been on my mind a lot as of late how to navigate this. I think the answer is that as a person with privilege, as a White person, there is no clean way. But I had a specific conversation last week with two White men that there was no way to continue in a way that I wanted, and I left feeling like I had failed them. I don’t know what the answer is. As an Ally, it is not my story, it is not my narrative. But it is one that is so important to be heard.