The single most important thing white users should learn is that respect does not equal understanding. you will never understand what its like to be black or poc (and i don't care if your a spicy white like an italian or slavic) and there are many topics where your opinions truly don't matter

Damn man not disagreeing but I get sad as HELL reading stuff like this. Like I was into "cool" indigenous stuff from a very young age (Aztec and local native tribes mostly), but as I grew up, wanting to just get my eyes into every community of different looking people I could for the sheer childlike novel pleasure of it, I started to face what you describe here and had some painful experiences. Like I had a big crying meltdown as a little kid year old over it and couldn't figure out why for years. I came into a country/world where the cruelty of the past and its unaddressed consequences had shut so many doors off for me, doors that I had expected to be able to walk through. After all, as a white guy most other social doors were open, but not the ones that were important to me when I wanted to learn about my peers (especially considering that they were the peers who were responsible for so much of the culture I consumed).

Overly earnest post perhaps but I guess the distance of the internet allows me subconsciously to attempt to explore this separation from a position of safety.

Edit: man this reads so "boo hoo imma sad boy"