yeah I am quoting Aladdin, and to be completely honest what I really wanted to do was to quote Aladdin in my mother language, portuguese. It makes more sense to discuss something that I want to talk about for ages: white - rich - privilege. Some people can yawn how many times they want but this is serious business. I am truly bothered with how little people appreciate how fucking lucky they are. I donāt need to do a lot of thinking to get to the point I deep breath and realize that my life was and still is pretty damn easy. I do like to think about it though, because it makes me a whole lot better, humanistically speaking. Ā
I am 26 and I never had to work my ass off, all my life my parents paid for everything I wanted, anything you think about it I probably had a class of it: ballet, painting classes, guitar lessons, volleyball, street dance, english, french, italian, and this list can go on and on because opportunity is something that I always had in my entire life.
So I get a little - letās be honest, a LOT - pissed off when people shout shitty comments about meritocracy in a society that clearly doesnāt give a fuck for poor/black/refugee/gay/any minority in this world.Ā
Another thing that I hate is when people say ājust try to do your bestā or even worse and more common - because people actually believe they are being awesome -: āI like to put myself in her place and try to understand what happens in her lifeā. First, from what Iāve learned it is impossible to do your best when you simply donāt have the tools to deliver. Iāve been supported my entire life, not only with a great family and money - money that I know it wasnāt easy to get and demanded a lot of work, this is a subject for another post that I want to write later - but I was born white, which shouldnāt be but it is a relieve in our racist and unequal society. So donāt ask for people do their best when they donāt know how because they spent their whole lives fighting to earn a place in this fucked up world.Ā
Second, and maybe the most important thing I got it in these last few years that I went from clueless-my-father-is-a-doctor-who-pays-everything-for-me-but-I-am-kind-of-a-socialist to someone that wanted to truly learn something about our sick society is the fact that NO, you canāt put yourself in others peopleās shoes. You simply canāt. It sounds beautiful to say āletās change placesā, āI wanna know how difficult it is to be youā, but this maybe our biggest problem right now. We need to stop thinking about how people feel and start to ASK THEM what the hell is going on. We donāt need to do an āexerciseā to put ourselves in another perspective, we just need to sit down, shut the hell up and listen to people who suffered enough; for us is just a way to show how great we are and how much appreciation we have for other people. For them is their lives. They have something to say. They actually have so much to say and sometimes it is quite difficult to listen because it shows how ridiculous, racist, pathetic we can actually be.Ā
I am well aware that racism and prejudice isnāt new, but now we have ways to report, discuss, photograph, snapchat, periscope the shit out of it. We can support and LISTEN to what people have to say.Ā