I’m Scared My Leftist Book Club Is Going to Find Out That I Love Money and Attention.

I know we’re supposed to hate racism and want it to end, but what if I didn’t get enough attention as a child?

I have a confession to make.

I recently moved from rural Georgia to New York City.

I miss White people staring at me.

I’ve even been walking around the Upper West Side with a sweater I got from a friend from high school’s clothing brand that reads, “Nigga We Paid,” in the hopes of attracting some type of attention.

Nothing.

And I know we’re supposed to hate racism and want it to end, but what if I didn’t get enough attention as a child?

What if racism makes me feel powerful? What if I’m having fun?

I’m tired of acting like I’d be fine with a world where White people didn’t hate me.

But, being a leftist looks so cool. Like, “revolution” and “radical” are so fucking fun to say. All the authors we read in my book club look really cool in pictures, and the quotes I see of their work on Instagram are really powerful. I’m sure the books are, too.

And even though I’ve gotten really good at going on vague and fantastical filibusters about oppression, and distracting from the fact that I haven’t read the month’s book, I fear they’re starting to suspect me.

I think when I speak, they can smell fear on my breath. Fear of my Blackness being stripped of capitalism, Christianity, and White people.

My leftist book club keeps talking about “imagining a better world”.

Bitch, I’m scared of a better world.

I’m scared of having no idols to look up to. No one to see as significantly more attractive and better than me that I can devote myself to mentally and financially.

If Beyoncé ceases to exist, I might have to start loving myself. Or worse, my community. I might have to start talking to my grandmother. Or my friends.

I’m comfortable as I am. I like this little life. Where racism is just a light little theatre game I play with America, and I can call myself an activist because I vote.

I like going to poor, pretty places. Posting them on my Instagram story. I like boarding in Zone 3, and watching in disgust as the normal, ugly commonfolk boarding in the lower zones stare at us comfortable bourgeois.(I used to think ugly people were, like, New York Fashion Week models or Amy Schumer, but hoo boy, anyone who thinks that should descend into the pits of working-class America, like I do, on my flights out of LaGuardia.)

Hey, pro tip to anyone who boards flights past Zone 4: rich people don’t like to be stared at. Keep your eyes on the floor, brokey. You might spot a dollar.

I’ll see how long I can keep up the act, though. Leftists are really accepting.

Last week, I accidentally called Karl Marx a “city girl” when I learned that Friedrich Engels would pay his rent, but they forgave me because they “were moving from a place of empathy”.