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You cannot “opt out” of racism! [1]

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Date: 2025-07-25

Quite a few of you seem to think that somehow, you’ve escaped the culture you’ve bathed in since birth. That you’ve beaten the system in the systemic! You cannot opt out of a culture that you live in. You can scream “not me, I’m one of the good guys” until you’re blue in the face, you will still be an unwitting racist, if you are white. Until the culture changes you cannot opt out of racism. Well you could move, but racism is worldwide and whites enjoy their privilege in almost every country they are in, even the Black and Brown dominated ones. Did you not know that?

Let’s take Haiti, over 90% Black. A white guy came in one day, after a couple of months went to a bank, got a loan, bought a house, got credit lines at every store, it was almost a year before they started asking him to pay and he just hopped back on a plane and left. Oh and there’s the little fact that all the rich people? Not Black. How about Sout Africa before they ended apartheid? Hmm? So yes, numbers have little to do with white privilege racism.

If you are white in this world you are a white privilege racist by default, and the worse thing is, you cannot opt out, you did not create this system(you do keep it going), you did not ask for it, but as you live and breathe in this culture of racism you cannot opt out of it either.

You cannot choose not to receive a loan because you’re white and white folks are granted loans with less criteria than Black folks. You cannot choose to be followed every time you go into a store. You cannot choose what history is taught in school. You cannot opt out of the benefits of systemic racism. You cannot choose to tell a cop to follow you! You do not choose to tell a teacher to grade your kid lower. You cannot opt out!

Because you are not the ones taking these actions, you are simply the ones benefiting from them because you are white!. Hell, even the person doing the actions does it on instinct, because culture has told them Black folks are thieves, so they follow Black folks, even though in reality the majority of shoplifters are white teens. Culture has told them Black folks don’t repay loans, hey they’ve watched movies and read books! As long as systemic racism is in place, if you are white you are racist.

What you could do, is help change the system, but how are you going to do that when you refuse to acknowledge the very real problem of systemic racism and what it is? All any of you ever think of when the issue is raised, is how can I take myself out of the lot! Because guess what? Culture has taught you that racism is bad, and it is, but it has also taught you that racism is saying the N word and hating Black folks, you don’t say the N word and you don’t hate Black folks, ergo you’re not racist! Wrong!

You got a brain use it! You know what you can opt out of? That mindset, you know the one that feeds your denial. You’ve been told time and time again what true racism is, I’m hardly the first one to address this topic, yet you still are trying to find ways to opt out, cause “you’re not racist”, but you are. You are a racist privilege white person, because you live in a racist privilege white world.

You keep touting progress with satisfaction, pointing to various superficial accomplishments as proof of the country’s progress towards equality. Again that’s like touting the progress on the construction of your house after 600 years by showing off that you’ve dug the hole for the foundations. Progress is not our goal. We want the house finished, complete with décor, furniture, utilities and pets to boot. We’re tired of looking at the damn hole in the ground.

You may think I’m being too harsh on you but coddling you hasn’t worked in our favor. Trying to gently guide you hasn’t worked. And lord knows our patience has not been rewarded, quite the contrary, you’ve abused our patience to keep your way of life alive and doling out crumbs on paper. And by that I mean passing little bits of legislations that say a law exists but there’s no consequences if the law isn’t implemented. Exhibit A the case of the young man who was denied his diploma and expelled for wearing his hair in his cultural way even though the Crown act was passed into law! What penalties were inflicted on the school? NONE.

And yes it is ALL white people, again by saying some, most, many or lots it is again us coddling your feelings, so you won’t get mad and we can keep on pretending that we’ve got some sort of mutual understanding, while the truth is we’re just sparing your feelings once more because you’re white and we can’t break this system without you.

So this time I’ll tell you straight out, it is all white people, from the poorest to the richest who benefit from systemic cultural historical racism. You cannot opt out, until the culture changes, until the system changes, until the mentality changes, you all benefit from it. I can hear you now how do poor white people benefit? The majority of beneficiaries of food stamps? White people. Most likely to get the beds in homeless shelters? White people. Most likely to be given out money on the streets? White people. Most likely to be given a second chance? White people. So yes, you ALL benefit.

Again, you cannot opt out, it’s like trying to pick a grain of salt or pepper out of the stew that’s been on the stove for 600 years. It is simply not possible. We just need to start making a new stew. And by stew I mean culture.

#TheAmericanHaitianPoet #Woke #SocialPoetry

Paypal.me/murielvieux (small donations go a long way in Haiti)

Muriel Vieux – July 25th, 2025 – ©All rights reserved

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