Coconut Kelz is literally a result of feeling like my white friends couldn’t really be my friends if they don’t care and get involved with issues that affect people that look like me. Seeing that same deafening silence from white people this week lol. Aoki put it perfectly:

It’s not enough to think you’re “not racist”. You have to be actively ANTI RACIST. That means when black people are murdered by those meant to serve and protect and you don’t bat an eyelid or you say NOTHING, you’re telling your black friends that black lives don’t matter.

That THEIR lives don’t matter. You can’t call yourself an ally or say you care about your black friends if you don’t care about the issues that affect them. “Colour blind” is not the aim. It’s erasure. The aim is to see our colour, and to respect it and to use yours to protect it

And black people who are silent are 10 times worse. I’m sorry guys, this time you don’t just get to sit on the fence. Silence is complicity. Silence is saying that you don’t care. SPEAK UP. Say SOMETHING. And if your friends aren’t saying anything... ask them and yourselves why

And the answer is not a great one because it means that you in your blackness, don’t matter. They don’t want to be reminded of your blackness because then they’ll have to admit that that’s the one part of you they don’t care for or about.

If you have white friends, I challenge you to ask them their thoughts on everything that’s happening. From #GeorgeFloyd to #AmyCooperIsARacist to #AhmaudArbery and #BreonnaTaylor. Do they even know those names? If you’re too nervous to ask, you have your answer.