PATIENCE: ALWAYS THERE, OFTEN IGNORED

You fail to recognize that you are the beneficiaries of a colossal amount of patience. Patience is not without limit. When patience grows short, at least two things can be expected: emotion flows outward or it flows inward, sometimes both.

If we express our frustration, our dissatisfaction, we are immediately a problem. Your repeated lack

of attention or stubborn ignorance eventually demands going beyond the calm, assertive reasonings and ample citations. For all the demand for evidence, none given is ever sufficient. We are seen as angry and divisive no matter how calm we are. You would rather not talk or question yourself or be challenged.

If we grow quieter, if we withdraw, nothing changes. We become silent, even easier to ignore. And that is your "normal": our invisibility is your "calm". Our silence is your "quiet". Our complicity is your "peace". Your undisturbed comfort is "justice".

Repression causes psychological and physical damage. It distorts, it erodes. Yet our national modus operandi still encourages repression and suppression, a foundational legacy established - often forcefully and with deadly results - by the Puritan immigrants centuries ago. It is unhealthy as a standard practice.

That is the old way: you accepting us on your terms, you giving status as equal people at your whim, you determining what "equal" means, what "objective" means, keeping "normal" narrow and biased. "Coming to the table" only means your table, your place settings, your comfort as the "middle ground". The old way and the ways you continue to cling to them are being rejected.

What we seek is nothing new. Your responses are nothing new. Your stubbornness is as generational as our tenacity and the struggle itself. You are the obstruction. It is not our failure to do enough, it is yours.