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This thread is for @Jenna_Marbles #JennaMarbles #jennamarblesislovedparty
Jenna, I hope you read this because I watched your video and got some things I'd like to share with you, one 33-year-old lady to another.
Jenna, I hope you read this because I watched your video and got some things I'd like to share with you, one 33-year-old lady to another.
I live in Washington state, right above you. I am a white-passing POC, cisgender lesbian with anxiety and depression.
I have helped build up my city's BIPOC queer community through a local HIV/AIDS organization, and my college. I have been a house member to my city's ballroom culture, and was a co-founder to my college's first queer student club.
I am sex positive. I love sex and love learning about it. I like to pass around condoms. I like talking about how genitals work. I talk about consent, about kink, and safe sex. It's good shit.
Knowing what you know about me now, I want to tell you this very important thing:
I need you to keep making videos.
I need you to keep making videos.
The reason why is because, your voice is valuable. It's heard, and it's respected. People listen to you when you speak, and they follow you. They agree with your povs and share them with others. That's powerful af.
And why is this? Well... it's mostly because you're white and cisgender tbh. It's true. Don't be ashamed of it, though, because I can tell that you're dealing with a lot of shame around that misplaced privilege. Please don't.
I can also tell you're processing a lot of this turbulent and very palpable tension from an anxiety headspace. As one anxious person to the next, I hear your mantra and it strikes me deeply: I don't want to upset anyone. I just want to make everyone happy.
What can you do with all of this? The privilege, the shame, and the anxiety surrounding old shit being dug up and pointed at you? When do you get to move forward and be just who you are today?
You gotta rest and come back to fight. You gotta keep reminding yourself that there will always be people on social media looking to pick fights that are unhelpful to both sides of the conflict.
You gotta face white fragility not as a shame fest, but as a burden that was placed on you by a systemically racist culture that values your skin color over others.
This is about a shift in perspective here. Don't be ashamed of being white. That's not what this is about. It's about breaking the cycle of racism by becoming empowered white and white-passing persons--for the right reasons.
You can't control the privilege our culture here in the USA has given you, but you can use it for good. You can use it, decolonize it, and be one more white person that turns your white fragility into confidence, power, and fearlessness in the face of systemic racism.
We need that, and you are so fucking close. I get that it's hard to see people bring up the past, I get it's hard to acknowledge it all over again, sit with the discomfort of knowing the mistakes you've made.
We can't escape those who have good intentions but don't know how to have conversations around those intentions. They fight, they shame, they think this is how it's done. It's not. It's not helping very much at all. (There are exceptions, of course.)
For you, this is unhelpful, and so I want to offer you a new mantra instead of the one I heard too many times over in your video. Here goes:
I absolutely cannot change my past.
I absolutely cannot change the thoughts and feelings of others.
I can only exist within myself.
I absolutely cannot reject the privilege I was born into.
I can absolutely control myself.
I can absolutely control how I use my privilege.
I absolutely cannot change the thoughts and feelings of others.
I can only exist within myself.
I absolutely cannot reject the privilege I was born into.
I can absolutely control myself.
I can absolutely control how I use my privilege.
Say this to yourself, as much as you can. Believe in it, live it. You are valuable, you are needed, you are wanted.
You can only say sorry so many times for things that you can longer take back. You have to be given the space to move forward, make better choices, and thrive.
So make that space, but come back to us, and don't carry that shame with you. It won't help you, and we don't need it. You don't need it. We need your energy, courage, silliness, and compassion. You messed up, and you've learned. That's what matters most.
Tbh I wish I could talk to you more about this because I find this thread to be confining. It might not happen that you and will ever talk directly, bit putting it out into the ether.
I'd like to connect with you. You're not alone, you have people who want to hear you.
I'd like to connect with you. You're not alone, you have people who want to hear you.
