"...And they'll wish they never met you at all!"

[Image description: Stills from Carl Thomas' "I Wish" music video. In the first image, Carl Thomas can be seen looking out of his car window while driving. He has a look of despair on his face at what he is seeing. The second image shows Carl leaning back in his seat. He looks sick to his stomach as he holds in a deflated breath. He has a defeated look on his face. Both pictures are captioned with "White people when they share something wild they've said or done to a person of culture, look to another person of culture for validation or a cosign and realize they're about to get checked."]

[Image description: Stills from Carl Thomas' "I Wish" music video. In the first image, Carl Thomas can be seen looking out of his car window while driving. He has a look of despair on his face at what he is seeing. The second image shows Carl leaning back in his seat. He looks sick to his stomach as he holds in a deflated breath. He has a defeated look on his face. Both pictures are captioned with "White people when they share something wild they've said or done to a person of culture, look to another person of culture for validation or a cosign and realize they're about to get checked."]

On Work, Safe Places, Safer Places, and White Supremacist Workplace Culture

I am 41 years old and have never felt safe in a workplace.

I have held down a job in some capacity since I was 13 years old, and I have yet to work in an environment where I’ve felt safe.

Not safe. Not safer. Nothing.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, and can share an opinion or viewpoint contrary to what white societal norms deem acceptable and not have the sword of Damocles swinging over my head.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, enough not to have to make sure I’m carefully wording my counsel and advice to others in ways that will not have anyone calling me racist to white people or “unwilling to understand what white people are going through.”

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, enough to do the work that I went and obtained student loans and a degree for in a way that centers the humanity and mental, physical, and emotional well-being of others and challenges leaders to lead with empathy without having one or all members of the senior leadership team question my skillset or “fit” for “their” organization.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I see other melanated, under-represented, unserved communities feel safe, hell, safer, enough to seek support when they are being harmed, they’re witnessing someone being hurt, or their needs aren’t being met without someone asserting they are “trying to stir the pot” or being told that they are the issue, not the workplace culture.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel safe, hell, safer, around the idea that accountability is expected of everyone, not just those impacted by not having power, privilege, positionality, and proximity to or assimilation of white supremacist hierarchal ideology.

I have yet to inhabit a workplace where I feel like I’m doing anything but putting together survival plans and trying to make it to Friday.

Before the white “professionals” and those who covet the comfort and faux safety of white supremacist ideology chime in with their advice, I want to let you know that I’ve heard your advice, often unsolicited, since I’ve been a part of the workforce. It is always centered around assimilation or options with a history of not benefiting the melanated and marginalized. So, I’ll pass. I’ll also pass on the notion that, somehow, I’m the reason I don’t feel safer in the workplace, like my existence and unwillingness to sit idly by and allow myself or others to be harmed in “the problem.” I’m not “the problem.” People who look like me, talk like me, and bring their embodied identities to work like me are not “the problem.”

“The problem” is the systems and structures of whiteness created as the foundations of work that present us with the boxes we’re forced to fit into.

”The problem” is that so many people do not feel safe, hell, safer, anywhere, yet we have to get up every day, try to earn a living, and survive in another space where we cannot rely on safety and stability.

At 21, I began understanding that workplace culture in the United States works as designed.

At 31, I intimately understood that workplaces were not designed for someone like me.

At 41, I firmly understand that I will never inhabit a space designed for someone like me.

And I know that if I want any form of safety, it will be up to me to build it because I will never work anywhere that will dismantle or create a new design because of the whiteness-driven revolt that would ensue.

Challenge accepted.

On Nat, Magical Girls, and the Intersection of Justice

Sometimes, my energy is magical girl energy.

Sometimes, my energy is Nat Turner energy.

Either way, understand that justice is always at the center of who I am.

Also understand that you do not wanna come around me with hate and bigotry and catch me on a day where the Nat Turner in me pulls out his Sailor Scout wand to dispatch you and your ugliness.

Believe that.

On Wolves, White Violence, and "Changing the World" After Reading One Anti-Racism Book

One of the ongoing conversations I have with white people is around them feeling like they've taken a couple of trainings, read a few books, and now understand 400+ years of racism and white supremacy to the point where they're ready to "change the world" and "be an ally."

Y’all don’t realize how dangerous y’all are.

I would rather you didn’t open up the door to learning if you weren’t going to come in, take a seat, and make it your forever home.

All y’all are doing is adding more weapons to your anti-Black, racist, white supremacy-upholding arsenal. You’re more dangerous to communities of color, Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, when you know a little because y’all conflate it as if you know a lot and wield your good/bad binary like a Morningstar.

I have yet to see a white person who has attended a couple of trainings at work and read a few basic books do anything but harm melanated folx while thinking they’re helping us with their new “education.” And I have yet to see an “educated” white person respond to being called in or out about harming others demonstrate that they have the emotional maturity and ongoing understanding of white supremacy enough to take in the feedback, atone, and do better.

Wolves in ill-fitting sheep’s clothing.

If you’re going to open the door, come in, stay awhile, and decide if you’re gonna love it or list it.

For all our sakes.

[Image Description: An image of two wolves staring at each other under a big moon. Above them are the words, “White people: inside you there are two wolves.” Below them are the words, “They’re both racist. One of them just hides it better than the other.”]

Image Description: An image of two wolves staring at each other under a big moon. Above them are the words, “White people: inside you there are two wolves.” Below them are the words, “They’re both racist. One of them just hides it better than the other.”

On Professionalism, Games, and Neo

What Western culture likes to call professionalism is more of a tenuous game of restraint and mindfulness the further you are from whiteness.

For many melanated folx, it takes a lot of energy, therapy, mindfulness, and understanding the impacts of generational trauma, situational trauma, and white societal consequences not to shake some of y'all like a Polaroid picture.

And that's not a list of considerations for a work week.

Most of the time, all these tools and considerations go through our heads on a workday.

And sometimes, we're already in this headspace of maintaining and sustaining our peace and holding on to our careers by 9:30 a.m. on a workday.

White Western ideology would make you think professionalism is like a chess game.

That's because white people and people with privilege, power, and positionality don't have to play chess while dodging bullets like Neo.