(Compton, CA) Oh no. Do Daryl and Shebra not realize how un-woke it is of them to do this? We agreed at the community meeting that if we were going to move to Compton, we would do our best to respect the history of this neighborhood. Instead, you have put up a Black Lives Matter sign in your front lawn and expected it to go over well. Don’t you see what kind of message it sends for us to move to a historically black neighborhood and open up cat cafes and succulent emporiums while also taking advantage of the cheap rent that will rise as more people move to the city, forcing out those who have lived here for generations? No? Just me?

You see, in this country, amongst the other countless atrocities leveled against black Americans for centuries, they have especially been mistreated when it comes to housing. So much so that even the people’s champion, FDR, purposefully left black Americans out of his infamous “New Deal,” leaving the wealth-gap between white and black citizens almost incredibly wide. In fact, in some cities like Boston, black Americans have almost reached negative net wealth.

Although, as the old saying goes, it’s easy to lose when the other side cheats, doesn’t tell you the rules, and forgets to invite you to the game.

This is the basis of the whole Black Lives Matter movement, to show that in a country that had for so long been trying to erase black lives that it couldn’t do so as easily as it once could. That those black lives were going to be lived to the fullest in spite of a system that despises them. Don’t you see, ladies and gentlemen, that by putting a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard, a yard that until very recently had been owned by generations of black Americans, that you can’t really mean it?

Also, Shebra, it’s not really on-theme for the winter season. Revolts are for the summers, everyone knows this.

We know this letter to the neighborhood council is out of the usual, but we please beg that you remove Daryl and Shebra from Compton until they learn what it means to be an ally. Thank you.

This article was written by Nathan Ellwood, who got a flu shot and while he was at the doctor’s office, everything changed. Follow him for more on Twitter @NPEllwood.