White friends: If you care about me, please read this.

Alone, these events take up only a few minutes each. I'm writing them out in detail in hopes that you might be able to see a modicum of what I (and other WOC) go through daily.

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I went to my local coffee shop, which I go to ~5x a week. I know everyone there. The line is a little confusing (you can order from multiple places), but the baristas do a good job of noticing order, for the most part.

Today, the barista was alone.

I was waiting in line behind one person. A WW stepped up to the other side and ordered. I was mildly annoyed because she cut the person in front of me and me. I moved on.

The barista helped the person in front of me. A different WW, seated at the counter called the barista over and handed him her card. She said "I'm paying you right now." I made eye contact with her, because she was cutting me. She made eye contact back, but continued on.

Again, mildly annoyed. Then, she proceeded to continue to chat up the barista for another 5 minutes, going on and on about some job she didn't get because she doesn't dress nicely enough or whatever. At this point, I'm directly staring at her super annoyed.

She's blatantly disregarding that I was in line before her (and arguably, she's not even in line) and she doesn't GAF.

The barista apologies as it's the end of his week; I can tell he reads what's going on. The counter woman proceeds to interrupt my transaction SEVERAL TIMES.

I'm not in a hurry, luckily, but this made me super upset. I feel like she had no regard for my entire existence.

Now at this point in the story I feel like people might say "she just cut you in line...get over it" but this is not the same as someone "just" being rude.

This is the feeling of complete erasure. It happens in uncountable, microaggressive ways; so easy for everyone else to dismiss how you feel and what you experience as a POC.

If I complain about it, I get called out for "overreacting" or "making everything about race."

I was waiting in line for food at a Chinese spot. Still feeling very nauseous. A large white family is in front of me, being wishy-washy about what to order. In general I am biased as I don't like when people get in line unless they're 70% or so sure of what they want.

I recognise they were in line first, and thus, entitled to their time. It's _not_ what I'm accustomed to, which is getting out of line and not occupying space if it's not for a purpose. But that's part of what society conditions us as POC to do. Step aside.

After ~3 minutes of intense questions from the mom, the dad makes eye contact with me and says, "You can go in front of us if you're ready." The mom continues to ask questions despite what the dad said, so I said, "It seems like she's still engaging." He looks at me sheepishly.

Another 4 minutes or so go by and the mom decides it's too overwhelming to order. The two daughters step up and order, asking the cashier basically all the same questions and whether their mom ordered dish a, b, or c. The cashier offers a menu, as she's noticed too.

I tell her "no thanks, I know what I want." The dad is super apologetic at this point, as he realizes I've been waiting and could have ordered in like 2 minutes. I tell him it's fine, even though it's really fucking annoying, as it's not his *fault.*

This situation happens a lot. One WP notices the space other WP ocupy, and they offer apologies to the POC. But they don't really do anything to get the other WP to see what's going on. So, instead of illuminating my erasure, he just kind of crawled into my erasure cave with me.

This type of nuance is so difficult to articulate, which is why a very brief exchange has turned into this. It's this weird feeling: Both not wanting to tell the dad, "Thank you for fucking noticing me." because...gross. I shouldn't do that. But also, kind of wanting to anyway.

WOC get erased from society like this, over, and over, and over. It happens in more overt ways (leaving out their names when they win major elections in articles) to these minor ways. And quite honestly, they both are super painful.

I have stopped moving out of the way for white people on the street and in stores (exceptions apply). I realized one day that I have been conditioned to bob and weave as WP always just walk forward. They never notice me move.

As you might imagine, this shift has made it such that a lot of WP now run into me. At the grocery store yesterday, I was walking down a narrow aisle. I saw a WW headed towards me with her basket. She slammed into me, bruising both my knees.

She didn't apologize. She just kept going forward, as though she were a car that didn't quite clear a speed bump. She ran into me again.

Instead of yielding or continuing forward, I stood still. She had ample space to go around me.

Instead, she hit me a third time.

The third time, she huffed at me, and finally went around. I saw her interaction with the cashier and she was visibly irritated, throwing her groceries onto the conveyor belt.

In this instance it's not even about erasure. It's about dominance.

The WW went into that simply expecting me to move out of her way. She didn't initially make any attempt to share the space with me. Instead, she claimed her direction over and over.

All of these events, again, very quick interactions during my day.

But, compound these interactions over days, weeks, months. Intersect this experience with the Twitter. With similar work interactions where my voice is erased, and people restate what I just said (Not ONLY men do this, btw).

At the end of a long day, it gets to be unbearable.

I am tired all of the time now. All. The. Damn. Time. I'm tired and I feel erased from my own country. My own natural-born city by people who have migrated here from other states. And yet, I still get questioned DAILY where I'm *really* from.

So white friends, know this:

When I'm talking about white people, you're included in that. When you don't listen to me, when you invalidate my experiences as overreactions. It hurts most when it comes from you.

I can write off the Ambers of the world but it's harder to write off someone you love.

Thank you for reading.

Fellow POCs and trans folks, I see you. I support you. We got this.