It's a sub forum. groupthink.jezebel.com. Lots and lots and lots of really supportive people.

Right, but you can't money unless you can drive to work, and your mom won't teach you how to drive until you can afford a car, which you can't get until you get a job.... That's IMPOSSIBLE. Parents usually teach their kids to drive when they're still in high school. It's their job.

Your mother has it backwards. You cannot own a car until you have your license. I'm sure your mom is great, but that is not helpful, and is actually sabotaging.

Your family can't teach you how to drive? So, it's totally not a big deal to get your learner's permit, you just need someone to take you down to the DMV to take a test you have to study a little for. After you have that, anyone over the age of 21 can take you out to practice, so any of your friends with a car can…

That doesn't exactly seem far behind for 21! And congratulations on finishing your program — that's huge. Do you think your next step would be getting your driver's license? Is there anything stopping you from doing that?

You don't sound like a failure as a human to me — you sound very humanitarian indeed.

I'm sorry to hear that. That must amplify everything going on in the world to large degree. :-(

Eh, I wouldn't be so sure. At least, I don't read it that way. I mean, I guess it's written for white women in the sense that she's asking us to have more compassion and awareness for her experience. But fundamentally, I think the point is about putting black experience and voice at the front of center of black…

I do not even fucking know. TBH, it all makes me feel so hopeless.

Because they're the ones who decide who can carry weapons.

Herself, people who can relate, people who can't... For my own self, I can only say that it's been really eye opening to hear black women talk about how they feel they feel sidelined in their own causes by well meaning white woman. I wish I could say I intuited it earlier, but I can't.

I wouldn't belittle the little psychological pump from having people agree and star one's comments, or wanting to be liked an approved, even if it is anonymous.

Did you read the HuffPo piece? The whole thing about celebrating a KILLING of an unarmed man on his knees with t-shirts? Crystal fucking clear.

If anyone is interested in the history of officers wearing revolting t-shirts that speak to their rampant prejudices and violent disdain for the communities they're meant to protect, take a gander at this list Randy Balko compiled over a year ago. Here's a link to a cop message board discussing the funniest t-shirts…

To be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're saying or questioning. It's just an ironic point to her article.

It's another example of taking the voice of black Americans and making it about us, our needs, our confusions, making it easier for us. I realize that this particular essay is directly about that point, so it's hard to avoid, well, that very point. But it is an example of what the author is talking about, IMO. This…

Well, now we have a long thread on how these ideas and realities affect "good white people." Kind of makes the author's point, no?

If only there had been a trial to determine the validity of Wilson's testimony as the only person with something to lose based on which witness testimony people believed....

You can guaranty no such thing. Why are you so invested in believing that racism in the US, which is readily apparent to anyone who decides to look, isn't real?