An open letter (and invitation) to the so-called 99% from people of color (AKA the 99th percentile)

 

Dear so-called 99%

You suckers thought that you were so special, ennit?  You thought that your heineys were just that much better and softer and more supple than all those poor people of color, huh?  There was never any discussion of the “99%” for the past 400 years while Native lands were stolen, Native people were exterminated, black folks were enslaved, Latinos were gerrymandered, Japanese people were placed in internment camps or Arabs were sexually groped, fondled and heavily-petted at airports.  No problem, right?  There was never any discussion of the fundamental imbalance of power on this continent and inherent unfairness of the trickle-up economics for the past few centuries as the aforementioned groups were only seen as a source of labor for powerful white male interests.  Not a word.

Because you thought you were special.  You were immune to that.  That little issue didn’t involve you.

Now, you see that these powerful white males do not care about you either.  Now you see that they will—just like they did to “us,” all people of color in this country—extrapolate every single ounce of energy, money and value out of you, your kids, your wife, your mistress.   After they do that, they will throw you away, fire you, lay you off, send your job to Mexico or India or someplace else where they can do exactly the same thing to those poor schmucks.  Only they’ll do it for much less money.  Now, you’re beginning to see that and so you started to call yourself the so-called “99%,” because you realize that you’re not so special at all.

Stupid white people.

The punch line though?  You were always part of the 99%.  Those powerful white interests love you as much as they love me.  Which is to say that they love you about as much a man loves a pregnancy scare from a one-night stand.  None.  Zero.  Idiots.  The bad news: You’re not special and unfortunately you’re just now beginning to realize that.  The good news: well hell, at least you’re beginning to realize it now.  But those are the two reasons that people of color have not joined this movement en masse: #1 We cannot believe that you were so stupid to not know that you weren’t special and that these powerful white male interests were just using you, and #2 we want to make sure that you gullible sheep will not, as soon as those powerful white male interests try to buy you off with giving your job back with the little benefits and 401k, forget about all of us poor people of color who have been suffering for years.  We are the faces at the bottom of the well, the very bottom of the 99%.

We are the 99^th percentile.  The bottom.  We’re attracted to the movement, but we need assurance that you’re not gonna just up and leave and get tricked again, like you did before.

Now the invitation: we will join you.  We are attracted to this movement.  We want to join you.  The truth is that we need this movement at least as much as you do.  The truth is that we want to make something very serious and very permanent happen for the betterment of all poor and middle-class Americans—Native, white, black, Hispanic, Asian, Arab, everybody!  The truth is that you have always been our brothers and sisters—you just didn’t know it.  But we need to know that you’re serious.  And what we mean by “serious” is that you aren’t going to back to thinking that you’re part of the 1% again and forget about us.  You are not.  We are in this together, whether you, my white brothers and sisters, choose to acknowledge it or not.  We’re waiting.

So what’s it gonna be?