On Juneteenth and Four-Day Weekends for People of Pallor

I will never feel OK about Juneteenth being a federal holiday.

It will never feel right to me that people of pallor pulled a performative flex to give themselves a day off to "celebrate" what is essentially the impacts of their ancestors' enslavement, exploitation, and subjugation of Black bodies on stolen land.

Trust me when I say that 90% of the people of pallor who have today off from work aren't learning, reflecting, or giving their time or money to support Black communities in their cities. I can guarantee most of 'em are using this as a four-day weekend.

Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was never about acknowledging the generational trauma inflicted on Black people, discussing and learning about the ongoing systemic struggles that Black bodies have endured on this stolen land for centuries, or observing the documented end of Black bodies forced into chattel slavery. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was about people of pallor with power and positionality making themselves feel like "good people" through grandiose performative actions to curry favor from Black folx without having to put in the work necessary to atone for centuries of harm. But ultimately? Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was really about people of pallor with power and positionality making themselves feel like "good people" through grandiose performative actions to curry favor from other "good" people of pallor who want to feel good about themselves.

And knowing that will never allow Juneteenth's status as a federal holiday to feel right in my brain or body.

I wish they had just left it alone.

On Adriana Smith, Anti-Blackness, Experimentation, and Disregard for Black Uteruses and Black Women

Trigger warning: Descriptions of anti-Black woman hate and harm, anti-Blackness, and reproductive trauma.

Adriana Smith and her family should've never had to endure this horrible and traumatic public experiment in postmortem childbirth.

What Georgia did to Adriana Smith would never happen to a person of pallor with a uterus. And there's nobody out there that can tell me otherwise, because trying to deny this fact is an openly raised middle finger to the history of the mistreatment and bodily harm done to Black women and Black bodies for centuries on stolen land.

Even in a country that is on the fast track to remove reproductive rights and body choice from every person with a uterus and jail people for making personal choices that have nothing to do with the state, there is no way this would've been allowed to happen if Adriana Smith were a person of pallor. The news would've been running stories every damn day. Reproductive rights lawyers would've been coming out of the woodwork. But that didn't happen, did it?

And we all know why.

So instead of people of pallor and pallor-led legal aid organizations with power and positionality who claim they care about reproductive rights partnering with Adriana's family to fight for her rights, as they would with any cis woman of pallor with a uterus (because, let's be real, that's about all they would stand up for), last Friday, Georgia performed a C-section on a Black woman who was declared brain-dead in February and forced to be on a ventilator to conceive a child because, you know, laws and sh**.

And now, this 1-pound, 13-ounce child whose deceased mother was kept on a ventilator, unable to provide the nutrients needed to fully nurture his growth and development, is now fighting for his life in the neonatal intensive care unit because, you know, laws and sh**.

Cis women of pallor love quoting The Handmaid's Tale to describe the level of danger people with uteruses are in while openly choosing not to sit with the undeniable fact that Black women and Black bodies have always been subject to centuries of Handmaid's Tale-level sh** at the hands of people of pallor since colonizers forced Black bodies into chattel slavery.

Adriana deserved better.

Her child deserved better.

Black women deserve better.

On "Straight Pride" and Hetero Toxicity

Me everytime someone brings up the idea of "Straight Pride," also known as EVERY DAMN DAY IN A WHITE SUPREMACIST HETERONORMATIVE HATEFUL SOCIETAL CULTURE.

Image description: A picture of the right arm and hand of the children's animated cartoon Arthur's main character, Arthur Read. His right hand is clenched into a fist.

I swear hetero cis male people be really in their feelings every June, acting like their existence is diminished because other people are celebrating their lives, resilience, and perseverence in the face of generation-spanning bigotry and oppression and the whims of weak-sauce people who haven't had fun or given their partners an orgasm in years.

How you can be a part of a dominant culture that celebrates your existence and is intentionally structured to cater to your need to feel superior and important yet still act like you're being victimized is beyond me. And doubly beyond me for the hetero cis male people whose skin looks like rotisserie chicken if they don’t wear sunscreen.

[Image description: A picture of the right arm and hand of the children's animated cartoon Arthur's main character, Arthur Read. His right hand is clenched into a fist.]

This Week's Opening Thought: June 9, 2025

This week’s opening thought: A gaggle of y’all are out here raging mad at Sesame Street and Ms. Rachel.

Sesame Street.

And Ms. Rachel.

And why are you raging mad?

Sesame Street and Ms. Rachel are modeling empathy, compassion, and humanity, which I hope you want your children, their primary audience, mind you, to understand and embrace.

But I guess a lot of y’all would rather pass hateful views and rhetoric on to your children in their formative years with the hopes of creating a bunch of future nazis and lynching parties who have no understanding of how beautiful and uplifting it is to be a loving and compassionate human being.

I know a whole lot of y’all gave up on pretending that you’re “on the right side of history” many moons ago, but damn, man. Gangbangin’ on Elmo and threatening the life of Ms. Rachel?

What side of history - Hell, of anything - is that?

What a bunch of dangerous and hateful lil’ weirdos y’all are.

On Pride Month, Performative Nonsense, and Stepping Up or Stepping Out of the Way

It’s Pride Month, which sadly ranks up there in performative pallor energy with Black History Month on the “I’m a Good Person” scale. Months that are equal parts celebration and memorial always hit a certain way, especially if your identities are intersectional with a splash of melanin. With the state of intentionally harmful practices aimed at trans and queer folx currently taking laps through the counties and communities that collectively operate under the United States of America brand, months like this feel more meaningful…which makes it all feel more tenuous and precarious than usual.

As a queer-identifying person who hasn't had to constantly have my sexuality and sexual identities questioned and threatened by "sleuths" who think that have everyone pegged, I have been able to use the little bit of privilege and positionality I have to educate, correct, and chin check “allies,” melanated misanthropes, and alabaster homophones and transphobes without them seeing it coming. I say all of that not to brag or boast. There's nothing to brag and boast about. I have privilege and positionality, and I use them to support others without the need for kudos and cookies. No, I say all of that to amplify one simple idea:

It's easy as f--- to step up, speak up, speak out, call in, call out, and fight for people facing harm, death, and oppression.

And you don't need a special month or brand name merchandise to do that sh--.

We don't have time for y'all pulling us aside after a work meeting to "apologize" for Bill from Accounting being a toxic ghost that none of y'all who share his lack of melanin have the backbone to stand up to.

Ain't nobody got time for your low-key "apologies" when your ashy homophobic and transphobic family members aren't present to hear that you stand with your LGBTQIA+ friends and family members and that their anti-Black bigotry is not a good look.

You either stand with and fight for folx in the now or admit that you don't care about their later.

Performative activism is a choice. It's not and never has been the only choice, but a whole lot of y'all so-called "allies" love to act as such.

Just sayin.'

Happy Pride, my peoples.