On The Spectrum and Fake Empathy

So...let me speak on this one time, mainly because I realized that I've talked about it everywhere else but here:

If you heard what RFK Jr. said about autism and you didn't find yourself infuriated, scared, and ready to stand up for people in your life and community, it says a lot about how you're deciding to be "present" in the moment right now.

It speaks volumes about how performative your "allyship" is in moments of grave danger. It is an indictment of how you view Black and Brown lives. It's shows how you view people with disabilities. And it wipes away you showing up at those Hands Off protests a few weekends ago.

Now, some of y'all are gonna read that and be like, "It can't simultaneously be all of that, Pharoah." But, you see, it can and is ALL OF THAT. Past precedent, established over hundreds of years, has shown us time and again that it is all of those things. Those of you who say it can't be are choosing to be highly uneducated in the ways of oppression and refuse to see how picking and choosing what you care about to feed your "good person" complex is a key component of white supremacist culture. And real talk?

Ain't nobody got time for your apathy and discomfort with things you feel don't impact your life poorly disguised as empathy. Lives are at stake.

History has shown us that when dangerous, uneducated people are given power and control over any aspect of the populace, they more often than not create an even more dangerous set of precedents than they inherited. RFK Jr. and the deceased brain worm chillin' in his head should've never been given dominion over the health and well-being of the country, but because 60% of men of pallor, 53% of women of pallor, and 50% of Latine and Hispanic men voted for y'all's president, we now have a man who staged a bear homicide out here saying inaccurate, derisive, and dangerous statements about autism that will endanger the lives of millions of people.

I refuse to reiterate anything that man and his parelaphostrongylus tenuis said, but we should all be able to see that his hateful words masquerading as "expert" and "empathic" language are going to cause so much unnecessary harm, sterotyping, and prejudice for millions of people. He clearly doesn't understand autism in any way, shape, or form, yet here we are with the safety of millions in the hands of a person who refuses to believe decades of legitimate research and thinks he knows something when he has shown us time and again he knows nothing.

This transcends race, gender identities, socioeconomic statuses, and any other protected or non-protected class you might want to throw into the pot. But you know what?

EVERY FORM OF OPPRESSION DOES.

But y'all don't hear me, though.

And the wild thing is that most of y'all have autistic folx in your lives.

Just as wild is the fact that a whole grip of y'all are undiagnosed autistic folx who voted for what's about to happen.

Well, may the odds be forever in your favor, with yo' fake ass.

How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported

Image description: a faux cover to a cookbook entitled, "How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported: Authentic Ethnic Flavors for Bigots who Don't Deserve Them."

It never shocks me how much ethnocultural impact communities of color, the Global Majority, Black and Brown folx, have on people of pallor and what they think is the "American way" of life.

There is no "U.S. culture" without melanin building its foundations and giving the whole thing flavor and life.

A whole lot of y'all hate AAPI communities, yet love your Christmas Day Chinese dinner.

A whole lot of y'all hate Black folx but love fried chicken, peanut butter, every bit of southern cuisine on the continent, and hundreds of dishes and food combinations created by Black folx as the original struggle meals that you now posit as "upscale cuisine."

A whole lot of y'all hate Indigenous communities but have stolen their fashion and cultural heritage to use as aesthetics to deck out your bodies and homes.

A whole lot of y'all hate Mexican, Hispanic, and Latine communities but enjoy the creature comforts of the food they harvest, cultivate, and grow.

But, you know, gon' 'head and deport and endanger the legitimate backbone of your country like it's not going to upend the comfy-ass multi-colored tapestry of an existence you live in and benefit from.

[Image description: a faux cover to a cookbook entitled, "How to Cook Like The People You Just Deported: Authentic Ethnic Flavors for Bigots who Don't Deserve Them."]

On An Election and A Country's True Identity

I'm not surprised. I'm saddened, but I’m not surprised.

I'm unsurprised that 59% of men of pallor and 52% of women of pallor voted the way they did. I'm sadly not surprised that after everything he said and will do to immigrants when he takes office, he still got 54% of the masculine-identifying and 37% of the feminine-identifying Latine and Hispanic vote.

I'm saddened, but I’m not surprised.

I am disheartened but unsurprised.

I didn’t need a reminder, but for those who did, this election was a firm reminder that the United States is precisely what it has always been: a country steeped in individualism and fear of moving forward, unwilling to be progressive and care for all its citizens, and legitimately uninterested in trying to be the country it likes to claim it is.

He won this election, and it wasn't even close in the popular or electoral vote. A party with a platform of hate, oppression, and regression will be in complete control of the Government come January 2025, and it wasn't even a fight.

And I know so many of y'all voted for this man and this party while playin’ in the faces of the people in your life who you know their policies and governance will do extreme harm to. Most of y'all are quick to bust out a Black Lives Matter sign or bring up trans and reproductive rights just to have a smoke screen to vote against everyone’s best interests.

I loathe that most of y'all won’t own your hatred and fear of losing what you think is exclusively yours - rights, privileges, and safety from tyranny.

I loathe that most of y'all won’t own who you are in front of those your choices impact.

I loathe that most of y’all will be shocked when the people you elected do the exact things you hired them to do and you find yourself and your families adversely impacted and in physical, mental, emotional, and economic distress.

But I’m not surprised.

You're Americans! That's what Americans do, right?

I'm saddened. I'm disheartened. I'm not surprised, though.

This is the American way, y'all.

Note: This poll data is from a subsection of the voter base from 10 states.

On Blackness and Being A Team Player

Being Black is being told you're not a team player for not allowing a workplace to place a metric ton of work and stress on your shoulders while you watch your “affable” co-workers of pallor do the barest of bare minimums while being lauded as great people.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you don't want to participate in work parties and picnics and prefer doing your job, doing it well, then going home to live the life you've worked so hard to create in a white supremacist capitalist society.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you have boundaries that you enforce and reinforce with co-workers who have none.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player because you don't want to be friends with every person of pallor in your office looking to capture a “Black friend” to co-sign their racist nonsense.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player and being subjected to oppressive actions and attitudes in the workplace that aim to break you and push you into assimilation or conformity as a fraudulent means of survival.

Being Black is being told you're not a team player so much that you start wondering if it's your name.

But real talk?

Being Black eventually comes with the realization that most of y'all don't know what a team player is because y'all are too busy being mired in the nonsense of white supremacist likeability politics.

But you know, keep telling Black folx we’re not team players while we're some of the only ones scoring points for the team.

On HR, Calls for Accountability, and the "If You Don't Like It, Then Leave" Mentality

I talk about the field of Human Resources a lot. Most people would say that I'm draggin' HR as a profession. Because of that, over the years, many HR "professionals" have sent me private messages telling me to leave the field if I can't respect the hard work that HR "professionals" have on their plates. Some have even gone as far as to tell me to leave the field publicly on my platforms. And let me say that the diehard HR "professionals" who get so up in arms about how I talk about Human Resources and aim to check me always give me a nice hearty chuckle.

An absolute side-splitter.

Y'all are hilarious. You mean to tell me you look at the field of Human Resources and its practices and transactional mindsets and approaches masquerading as empathy, and you're OK with it? You don't think there's anything to call out? You don't see things that "seasoned" HR "professionals" are doing that continue to harm people in workplaces that need to be addressed? Don't you see anything happening in the workforce that HR negatively contributes to, which gives you pause? Don't you see the decades-long patterns of behavior that have created the deep distrust that folx have of Human Resources at play?

What are you, that dog sitting in the flaming cafe or something?

But somehow, my calling these things out, proposing solutions, and holding HR folx accountable makes me the person who needs to leave HR.

If you're in a field that you can't hold a mirror to, criticize, and call to task, then you need to find a new line of work.

And if you can't be called to task to do better and to evolve yourself and the field you're in, then you need to wake up and realize that I'm not the problem and thou doth protest too much.

HR as a field, industry, and profession are not fine. You're just too comfortable with everything around you being on fire while being the right hand of the king.