On Seeking Forgiveness and Being Undeserving Of It

It's funny how people didn't care that their vote would increase the cost of or outright eliminate healthcare options, terrorize communities with masked bootleg police and the U.S. military, devastate the job market, increase the cost of living, and dismantle and eliminate food assistance programs and other social services for millions of people because they somehow thought that Black folx, Brown folx, Indigenous folx, trans folx, and immigrants would be the only people harmed...until they found themselves also being hurt because, you know, all of the things mentioned above impact everyone and not just a couple of communities voters felt were expendable and disposable.

It's also funny how these same voters begged and pleaded like Keith Sweat for their president to save them for months on end, only to realize late last month that they would not be saved because their president had essentially used them to increase his wealth and power.

Hilarious.

Now, suddenly, it's y'all begging forgiveness on TikTok and Instagram for "mistakenly" voting for y'all's president (some of y'all in the last three presidential elections) and putting us in this autocracy.

Now it’s, "I made a mistake" and "We have to stick together."

Y'all can miss me with all of that.

I can care about you as a person, even if you don't care about me and mine, because I don't want to see anyone hurting and struggling. I'm a humanist and an empathic being. Even if you hate me, I want you to be okay. But let's keep it 100: you did not make a mistake. You knew what you were doing. All of you did. So nah, we are not "sticking together." I do not forgive, and I definitely will not forget.

Y'all need to learn that empathy only goes so far.

I do not have it in me to forgive you for willingly hoping others would suffer so you could thrive under a hateful regime. And I know I'm not the only one feeling this way.

Y'all expect people you harm to forgive you because you live in a country where white supremacy has trained y'all to abuse others and expect forgiveness. It ain't happenin' this time, and a bunch of y'all are starting to see this, and you're unraveling. A part of me feels sorry for you, for your despair. But it's a small part, because y'all have made it very clear that this was supposed to be your "survival of the fittest" moment and you're realizing that a whole bunch of y'all ain't the fittest. And knowing that probably sucks. But...well...

I hope that you survive what you've inflicted on all of us, because that's what I want for everyone. And most of y'all will survive because of the work and community programs created and led by the people you were hoping would be harmed by all of this. But that's all that you'll get from me, and all you should get from them. That's more than enough. And if you have a problem with hearing that?

Better go and embrace some of that greatness you voted for to keep you fed and wealthy while "liberals" decide whether to help y'all at all.

This Week's Opening Thought: November 3, 2025

This week’s opening thought: Just in time for food assistance program funding to disappear under a cruel presidential regime, it’s the return of blatant racial profiling at the supermarket led by “good samaritan” people of pallor!

Yay.

As a Black person in a city with an overall very pale population, I’m no stranger to racial profiling, especially in retail settings. I’ve been profiled by people of pallor my entire life, probably more so as an adult.

Must be the t-shirts.

Anyhoo, like I was saying, being profiled is something I’m well acquainted with. Hell, a couple of weeks ago, I caught a person of pallor out of the corner of my eye following me around a local supermarket. He thought that I didn’t notice him trying to keep 10 paces away, watching me like a hawk as I picked up some tofu, but his lack of subtlety in trying to surveil me covertly was pathetic and almost cartoon-like. So when I stopped, made eye contact, and asked him if there was a problem, I damn near scared the pallor off of him.

Why was he tailing me, you ask? That’s a silly-ass question that you know the answer to, but what the hell. I’ll answer it with some specifics for you inquisitive folx.

He was tailing me because he thought I was putting unpaid-for items in my reusable shopping bag and not in the hand basket FULL OF GOODS in my right hand, which, once I called him out on his nonsense, he could blatantly see wasn’t the case.

Now, this store employee, who was not a loss prevention officer or security guard, mind you, could’ve been doing anything with his day at work - stocking shelves, helping customers find things, taking a smoke break and shirking responsibility - but something in him felt “obligated” to follow my Black ass around the store to “catch me.” He sheepishly sulked away, his balloon deflated because he hadn’t gotten his ‘gotcha’ moment. Meanwhile, I went back to completing my shopping, chalking it up as another Wednesday while Black in the United States. It did, however, highlight something I was fearful of as we went into November with SNAP benefits being non-existent: people of pallor policing Black and Brown folx in supermarkets even harder than they already do. And I knew what that meant: an increase in racism and hate crimes as “good” people of pallor think they’re stopping “dastardly criminals” when all they’re doing is showing how racist and ridiculous they truly are. I wondered how quickly into a hunger epidemic would people of pallor crank up their need to “catch the bad guys.”

It only took three days into November for my wondering to cease.

I’m using the self-checkout at the supermarket today because two cashiers are working and 100 damn people are trying to check out. I can sense the woman of pallor “managing” the self-checkout area, watching me like a lion stalking a gazelle as I ring up my vegetables. The moment I finish ringing up my zucchini, she pounces.

“Um, excuse me, but those squashes are different than the squashes you rang up.”

They weren’t. But I couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say.

Go on.

“These are $1.59/lb. And what you rang up was a $1.50/lb.”

You read that right. Your eyes do not deceive you. And I’d love to tell you this was the first time in my life I’ve faced something so preposterous in a supermarket, but that would be a lie.

9 cents.

She was hovering so close to me while I checked out that she saw the price and quantity of what I rang up. She was in my personal space that much, y’all. And she just had to make sure I was “caught red-handed” for a 9-cent difference that she was actually wrong about.

Eight other shoppers were checking out, but she had nothing to say to them. Not a thing. Not a glance their way. But she was on my ass like white on rice.

I’ll let you piece together what the racial demographics of every other person at a self-checkout machine were at the time.

It is these moments when I know that if I respond a certain way, I’ll be swarmed by security. I’ll be swarmed by security, and not one person of pallor checking out with their carts would step in and call out the nonsense they’re witnessing. But I’m also not willing to get treated like crap when my money with dead pallor presidents on it has the same value as anyone else’s, plus I don’t deserve harassment and targeting because of my skin color and the state of the raggedy-ass country I live in. And so I paused, stared her right in the eyes, and said, “If they’re so wrong, do you want to ring them up again?”

She went pale. Pale as a ghost rinsed with bleach, y’all.

She proceeded to recoil before stammering out, “No...no. Just telling you for next time.”

Again, I’m in a store full of shoppers and a packed self-checkout area at 4 in the afternoon, yet I’m the only person receiving the hands-on, red-carpet treatment.

Lucky me.

Please believe that what happened to me today is an escalation of an already normalized practice of white supremacist capitalism that will only get worse the longer this country’s leaders continue embracing harming as many people as possible while blaming their intentional harm tactics on Black, Brown, and immigrant communities.

Please believe that if you’re a person of pallor, or someone who has more privilege, power, and positionality than other melanated folx, and you witness this escalating harassment and say nothing, you are complicit in the harm of others for the sake of your own comfort.

And please believe that people in your life already know you’re a bystander and not a disruptor, “ally,” or whatever performative-ass thing y’all are calling yourselves these days.

This Week's Opening Thought: October 27, 2025

This week's opening thought: If you're senior leadership in an organization and you haven't taken one moment over the past ten months to consider how everything happening in the United States is impacting the mental, physical, and emotional well being of the people who work for you, especially your team members from marginalized, vilified, and targeted communities?

You need to own that you don't care about the people who work for your organization.

If in the last few months you haven't taken the time to work with other senior leaders in your organization to develop contingency plans, resource guides, an on-site food pantry, or any other support for the folx working for you trying to take care of themselves and their families while being chastised for a mistake on a report?

You need to own that productivity, profit, and personal comfort matter more to you than people.

And if somehow, over this past month, you haven't thought for one second how many of your organization's salaries aren't enough for the people who work for you to survive and take care of themselves, their families, or their communities without government assistance yet you're figuring out where the company Christmas party is gonna be held this year (emphasis on "Christmas" because so many people complained last year about it being called a holiday party)?

You need to own that human life and survival are barely tertiary concerns for you.

Own that you view people as an end to a means.

Own that your comfort is much more important than human lives.

Own that you just don't care.

Own it.

You might as well, because you ain't foolin' anyone.

On Polka Dot Dresses and Doing Anything But Actually Doing Something

Let's see...safety pins, vagina hats, blue bracelets, pink suits, and now?

Polka dot dresses.

Because why stand up, go outside, and physically be about that life like the female New Yorker in the polka dot dress who tussled with ICE agents Tuesday when an ICE sweep triggered protests on Manhattan’s Canal Street, when you can just cosplay as her and post pictures on social media of yourself with captions like "IYKYK"?

Oh, cishet women of pallor. The performative "clothing and accessories as a form of resistance" thing just never, ever ends with y'all, does it?

Geezus Kristo.

Accessorizing is NOT an act of resistance. Wearing a piece of clothing is NOT an act of resistance. But you know what? It is a great signal for the rest of us to clock your performative nonsense while knowing not to trust you or expect you to be ten toes down for a real, tangible, physical act of resistance in these streets.

And real talk? Some of y'all ain't got the skin tone to pull off polka dots.

You can sip that tea however you see fit.

On Chet, Sheryl, and Not Addressing Elephants Trampling Us So Y'all Can Maintain White Comfort

TW: brief mentions of sexual harassment, assault, misgendering

You want to know one of my many white supremacist workplace culture pet peeves?

When everyone on the team or in a small company gets "reprimanded" or "coached" for something that one person has said or done. And we all know who did or said the thing but we all have to pay for it more than the people doing and saying the harmful and hateful things.

I loathe being in a meeting and a supervisor wants to stress the importance of respecting people's pronouns when we all know Sheryl is the one person on the team who gleefully misgenders people and disrespects pronouns.

I abhor everyone on the team having to take the online sexual harassment training for the umpteenth time this year because, for some reason, serial sexual harasser Chet is never fully held accountable for being scum that most of us have filed complaints about until it's way too late and he physically assaults someone.

The white supremacist workplace culture's right to comfort and fear of open conflict nonsense ensures that harmful people maintain status and employment instead of being shown the door.

Making all of us redo trainings or sit through group-wide "coaching sessions" that should be meant for Chet and Sheryl alone to make it clear to them that their words or actions have consequences ensures that Sheryl and Chet will continue doing harm and keeping the toxicity of your workplace nice and elevated.

But you know, let's prioritize that comfort, civility, and collegiality until the inevitable lawsuits come, right?