I feel like the white world has a way of grooming white lgbt people to be Extra Afraid of POCs/interacting with nonwhite culture. Of whispering in our ears, hey, be careful around those people, they're more likely to be homophobic or to blame your queerness on your whiteness.

This serves a lot of interests. None of them are good. It serves racism, obviously. Keeping a section of white people - who, historically, have been gatekept from some of the benefits of white society, but currently are the most assimilated to it that we've ever been - from leaving whiteness very far behind at all, blinds us to the beauty of other cultures. Encouraging racism and prejudice in those who also face prejudice, justifying it as "pre-emptive defense".

But it also serves queerphobia! "Quietly" homophobic and not-overtly-transphobic white cishets get a finger to point at Those Queerphobic POC while their thoughts and behaviors remain unquestioned.

And we white lgbt folk go out and boldly say shit like "I'm not attending [POC dominant function they were invited to" implying or stating it because they Expect to get Hatecrimed* (*have uncomfy interactions based on their own queerness). it's so self-centered! and callous, racist, presumptive, and it keeps the doors to the mind SHUT! maybe there will be uncomfy conversations, too, but maybe multiple minds get opened from it.

I made another high effort video. I spent like 6 months writing and rewriting this. The original ending was me taking the flowers to the spot O'Shae Sibley was shot and asking audiences to think about why so much ballroom slang has to do with mortality and the mic drop is asking "why I am at a gas station."

The ending felt flippant and so I returned to the spot in the next morning and shot what I shot. I consider my video essays slowly building an argument and this being the first time I introduce my feelings on reparations - I kinda was using illustrative language by saying "white people owe reparations but also we owe reparations," and I'd like to think that sentence stands on it's own but my feelings on the matter is white institutions owe material reparations but also us white people, individuals, owe interpersonal acts of healing and repair. The ballroom scene is owed your consideration for providing language that a lot of us are so flippant about.

A long, long, long term goal that no one should wait on because I already have a lot on my plate right now is I wanna do a video essay "The White People's Case for Black Reparations," because I like framing white anti-racism as ultimately a selfish self-interest ordeal. Acts of reparation, of repair, benefits the repairer as much as those who receive repair.