i told y’all—white people don’t give a fuck

Stop.

This is why our next President will be a pumpkin with a murken for hair and fingers that smell like resisting pussy. White people wanted Donald Trump to be President. Most of them. Let there be no mistake, the overwhelming majority of White people in America voted for him. 31 percent of the voting population is ethnic minorities, and they largely voted for Hillary Clinton. If White people had even split their vote, Clinton would have won easily. Instead Donald Trump won the White vote by 20 points. They all piled in his corner. They did so with trite aphorisms about the constitution and their love for country, but White people not giving a fuck is the only reason that festering pile of molestation and mop wool will occupy the Oval Office.

Again, when I say White people, I don’t mean all White people. If you are that stupid you should stop reading this. And everything. I mean “White people in the same way Donald Trump means “The Blacks.” I mean it in the same way you “get shot walking down the street” in Black neighborhoods. I mean it in the same way Trump means it when he says we have no jobs, or education. I have a grasp of the English language, but I also have heart–so I don’t have to hide what I am trying to say with euphemisms and liberal safe space speech. I don’t call myself “urban,” “underprivileged,” or “inner city.” I am Black. I mean “White people.”

They don’t give a fuck.

I have often said here that I do not believe all–or even most–White people are racist. Not giving a fuck is different from racism. It’s privilege. Not giving a fuck is not the same as being a rapist. Not giving a fuck is giving the rapist a ride to the victim’s house. Not giving a fuck is being an accomplice to murder. Not giving a fuck is driving the getaway car for the bank robbers. You aren’t getting raped. You aren’t being murdered. Your money is under your mattress. Why should you give a fuck?

And White people have a long history of not giving a fuck. As soon as you mention slavery some diligent White soul will damn near simultaneously raise the regurgitated point that only a small percentage of Whites owned slaves. They never mention the plantation supervisors who beat them for a living, while not technically owning them. They never point out the hundreds of thousands of White businessmen who hired out slave labor to build ships, or farms. Or the White house. No one ever mentions how White people lived in a society elevated on a platform resting on the backs of enslaved people and didn’t do or say shit. They conveniently leave out the fact that every other civilized country began abolishing slavery in the 1700s and we were the last developed country left on the planet who allowed its citizens to use human beings as property. It was party because of economics and partly because of politics, but mostly because the White people didn’t give a fuck.

They didn’t give a fuck about Jim Crow. They didn’t give a fuck about the insane number of lynchings, bombings and killing of Black people throughout history. They didn’t give a fuck about slaughtering Native Americans and herding them like cattle to graze on land they once owned and telling them “stay here, and we’ll let you live.” They didn’t give a fuck about herding Japanese Americans into concentration camps (I was going to say “internment camps until I learned the definition of concentration camp). They didn’t give a fuck about throwing Molotov cocktails at college students who wanted to ride a bus, or busting batons over the heads of people holding hands walking across a Selma Bridge because they wanted to vote. They didn’t give a fuck about a 17-year old boy who just wanted Skittles. They didn’t give a fuck about a 12-year old playing with a BB gun meant for 12-year olds in a park meant for 12-year olds. They didn’t give a fuck about a man reaching for his wallet in Minneapolis. They didn’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about me. They won’t ever give a fuck.

For a second (a very brief one) I believed. Not that I believed in the benevolence and right-mindedness of White people, I just believed they could see clearly. There was a short period of time I thought they might see that race was not as important as class. That standing up for what was right was American and if we erased the dividing line we could defeat the real oligarchs. On January 20th 2009 I stood on the same patch of grass between the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol, that someone once stood on to listen to Martin Luther King, Jr. give the “I Have a Dream” speech and watched this country elect a Black man as its leader. I thought they might start giving a fuck.

I was a fool.

I know the the people who elected the tanning booth turdmonkey aren’t all as racist as he is. I understand that many of them hated Hillary Clinton and everything she stood for. I did too. But there is a difference between me and them:

I have stood in the crosshairs of hate before. I have seen it. I have felt it. I have had the boot on my neck. Of all the unsavory, corrupt people in the world, I could never choose the side who loudly proclaims that he is going to kick a group of people in the teeth.

I give a fuck.

They don’t.

Don’t ever believe them. Don’t every think they believe in the Constitution when they cast a ballot for a man who campaigned on eradicating the first amendment for Muslims. Don’t ever believe they care about “the troops” when they elected a man who openly mocked the parents of a son who gave his life to America because of their religion. Don’t you ever believe they care about poor people when they chose a man who cheats the small people he owes money. They don’t care about education (Trump University), women (grab’em by the pussy), God (two Corinthians), freedom (stop & frisk), the handicapped, the inner city or anything else. They are cool with being a part of an administration endorsed by the KKK. They might not believe the same as the alt-right Neo-Nazis who Trump constantly retweets and quotes, but they don’t give a fuck enough to unjoin themselves from the lot of “1488ers” who combine the 8th letter of the alphabet twice–“HH” for Heil Hitler–with the fourteen most important words in the English Language (“We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”) They will lay in bed with the devil because they feel a little chilly. White people don’t give a fuck about your sweat, blood or tears. They did this. Not third party voters. Not non-voters. Not Beyoncé.

Stop.

Stop your crying and bemoaning. We are Black. Our ancestors ate motherfuckers like Donald Trump for breakfast. If you think Donald Trump can stop Black people, then you might as well give up right now. Until he shows me that he is stronger and fiercer than trans-Atlantic kidnapping, a half a millennium of torturous human chattel, fugitive slave hunters, poplar tree nooses, whips, chains, shackles, German Shepherds, firehoses, Bull Connor, burning crosses, Charleston church shooters, rogue police officers, systematic oppression, education inequality, Fuckbois, Real housewives, Ebola and White girls who think they can fry chicken, he’s gonna have to fight me.

And I can fight like a motherfucker.

We can.

This post is in partnership with NegusWhoRead.

*Michael Harriot is a renowned spoken word poet, the host of The Black One podcast and the editor-in-chief of NegusWhoRead. He is perpetually just getting warmed up because he has no chill. He is on Instagram and twitter as @michaelharriot