Humanity.

As it has been over a month since my initial blog post, it seems only right to explain why I have been temporarily absent from sharing my thoughts. What a month it has been! My partner and I have finally taken the step to move into our own apartment. As harrowing as the whole Coronavirus phase has been, going into lockdown and not having to travel into work or have anywhere at our fingertips to go and spend money is what has enabled us to finally bring together the funds necessary for moving into our own home. Despite moving home previously, albeit for university purposes, and moving halfway across the world to Chicago, I significantly underestimated the amount of stress attached to moving properly and how tiring it is (the main part being in my previous stints of living away from home I didn't have a male counterpart in my property who requires a constant chaperone armed with cleaning products!) I digress; that's enough about my current affairs, which brings me to share my thoughts on the current global political climate. The world is currently embellished with crowds armed with posters, people sharing their thoughts on one of the very foundations of human existence: race. Being a white woman who has managed to surpass the confines of a background of poverty and attain an education, I do understand that my speech today on this platform comes from a position of privilege. I have never had to face persecution merely because of the colour of my skin. I believe that nobody should, in any period throughout history but even more so in a contemporary setting where so much has been done to dissolve the infrastructural racism engrained into society and legislature, be persecuted and oppressed because of the unchangeable matter of the colour of their skin. Everyone should feel proud to live within the skin in which they were born, and everyone should be at liberty to exit the shelter of their homes and feel comfortable that they will not be walking along the many streets of planet earth with the invisible, yet very real, target of racism on their backs. Humanity is an all-encompassing noun, it connotes the notion of collectivity and harmony. However, it still remains to disturb me how, despite being the same species, there have always been such aggressive divisions and segregation within a singular facet: humankind. I do believe that all races should be treated equally, judged in a contemporary light, and not indebted to the reparations of the sins of their ancestors. What I mean by this is that I have personally seen numerous posts on social media that have been uploaded with the intent to demonise white people based on the actions of slave traders. I believe that every affiliation to the slave trade should be dissolved, every statue still in place removed, every street name altered to something more democratically accomodating. I do not believe that anyone should carry guilt because of their race, nobody should feel ashamed to be black or white; the emerging rhetoric that focuses on making white people feel guilty and ashamed to be white because they carry are brandished with the guilt of actions centuries ago is counterproductive. White people are in a position of racial privilege, and should willingly use this to speak out on various platforms they dominate to broadcast the notion of anti-racism. This should, however, come from the heart and come from the emotional core of a human being that wants to end the generic oppression of others, not from a position of duress and feeling as though they have to offer an apology to the world for being white. Nobody should apologise for their race. Humanity is beautiful, racial borders need to be deconstructed, differentiation is versatility, versatility is strength. The world, and many of the people in it, is experiencing a very tumultuous time and my last words on this matter are that justice will prevail. Justice will be served for all of the individuals who have been subjected to de facto segregation, whether this is at the hand of those who work for the law or from common people who uphold the belief that the superior race still has a place in contemporary society. Black lives matter, every life matters. I hope that one day the world will be colourless. Only in that absence of colour will true beauty prevail and humanity as one singular facet will learn to live as one.