Column: Dear white people: hop off

If you’re reading this now, you’re too late. I have packed my pens and will be leaving The Daily Tar Heel, post haste.

The responsibilities of an opinion columnist are to begin difficult conversations, then to sit back, unable to say anything in return.

Had I known that working for a predominately white serving newspaper would leave me open to attacks by white neo-liberals refusing to spell check or recognize their privilege, I would have thought twice about taking this unpaid opportunity.

This is not admitting defeat. This is a stop on the side of the road and walking away for gas and supplies. This is a shout out to all the naysayers that I’m fine, despite your anonymous threats and harassing emails. I haven’t had the luxury of being anonymous. My email doesn’t differentiate between hate mail and updates from a professor. Yik Yak doesn’t autocorrect my name out and Chapel Hill streets feel more like Trayvon Martin’s long walk home rather than my solace at night.

I have read the most awful of anonymous comments that have left me bedridden and depressed, and yet still I rise from these shadows and respect their freedom of speech.

I have responded kindly to criticisms with personal dialogue and made efforts to improve upon the narratives I center my arguments upon, but my columns will never be cliche.

With every column I write, I upset the status quo by choosing topics I think are important. I practice a certain form of self-love that upsets my readership, and I make no apologies.

I would not need to stop and refuel had I felt supported by the demographic I intended to write for. I understand that Black people, Black women especially, are busy. I am not unfamiliar with pulling a triple shift explaining how white people are racist, how “Black Lives Matter” and why well-intentioned allies are dangerous.

I acknowledge that I do not speak for the Black community and that my ideas are more leftist than most, but without the support from a mentor or my peers, I have found myself defenseless when speaking personal truths. I did not take this job to build my resume. I wanted to write on topics relevant to the Black community. I wanted to bask in the legacy of mid-twentieth century Black theorists and feminists and draw my own conclusions. I wanted every Black person at UNC to spend a day, every two weeks, decolonizing their minds. I wanted the white people to listen.

I never intended to write to white people. I never intended to read their comments or to care what white people had to think, but sadly, white people have become a major part of my audience.

I know they’re reading this, preparing their comments about how many times I have used the phrase, “white people,” and why we should be called “human beings.”

If this describes you, then congratulations, you have won! Claim your prize of ignorance and hate at the door, and bask in the post-racial glow of the 21st century. You’ve done it. My hands are up, don’t shoot.