The Meaning of Black History Month for the White Man

Dear Fellow Citizens, 

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for even considering me to speak in front of you today. But allow me please to ask why you chose me? What have I to do with African American suffering? If the point is to bring light onto the problem of discrimination and false stereotypes, I must ask why I, of all people, am so worthy to address this national problem?  

In all honesty to God, growing up as a white man has offered no oppression: I have not "groaned" because someone of my race suffered affliction at the hands of another man. I "say it with a sad sense of disparity" that you are not able to live without "the ability to alter public space in ugly ways." Then how do I demand the respect of you? For the entirety of your life, not mine, you "feel like an accomplice in tyranny" because people formulate a blurry image before ever meeting you. And when I do cross paths with someone, I remain myself. No one believes I am a "perpetrator of that violence." For you, however, the only way to loosen someone's "hunch posture" is to artificially act like they do. You maybe dress in a certain way or listen to their music or even act in the way they might to show that you are the same; after all, we live in the melting pot of the world; and if you didn't know, that means everyone must live identically because the Norman Podhoretz's and Edward Hoagland's of the world can't "constrain [their] nerve." They still believe you are "stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty", further proving America values all opinions of only some.  While these men along with many others judge you through a veil of oblivion, doing all they can to avoid seeing your true character, what does Black History Month mean to me?  

I hope you understand my position. I also hope one day you and I will rid the world of these two sides and unite as one so that I can stand in front of you without thinking of how undeserving I am to address the oppressed.