This Week's Opening Thought: September 22, 2025

This week's opening thought: After this past weekend's full-on hate rally masquerading as a memorial service, and seeing the sea of people of pallor who showed up to "pay their respects" to a white supremacist bigot with tears in their eyes and a distortion of the purported "values of Christianity" in their hearts, I found myself once again playing my least favorite game: What Will It Take?

What Will It Take? focuses on me asking myself one question: what will it take for people of pallor to be uncomfortable enough to feel like "enough is enough" and stand up and fight for, well, everyone? Themselves, oppressed communities, targeted communities, everyone?

I've been playing this game for at least 30 years now, y'all.

What Will It Take?

Hell if I know.

After all my years on this planet, and decades of my own learning around the intersections of white supremacy and history, I honestly have no clue what it will take to get people of pallor to recognize how dangerous this country is for marginalized, targeted, and invisible communities and decide they're ready to fight.

I have no clue what it will take for people of pallor to collectively realize that white supremacy harms them, too, and that it's time to do more than show up to a "No Kings" rally.

And I'm flummoxed when it comes to understanding what it'll take for people of pallor to realize that we've been long past "talking it out," "finding a middle ground," choosing to "not get into political conversations," and well into dealing with an escalating level of danger that will eventually subjugate, eradicate, and oppress most if not all of us.

What Will It Take?

What will it take for y’all to fight?

I honestly don't know.

Y'all do always seem more than ready to fight and "stand up" against Black and Brown folx, melanated folx, trans folx, and queer folx for pointing out the harm, hate, or discrepancies in y'all's words and actions, though.

Huh.

Guess I know the answer to the question after all.

On Transphobia, Facts, and Acting Like We Don't Know Who The Real Terrorists Are

TW: transphobia, hate.

The Heritage Foundation is urging the FBI to add “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism” (TIVE) to its list of domestic extremist groups so that it could “detect, disrupt, & dismantle TIVE cells.”

Citing the murder of Charlie Kirk as the “latest example in a long line of home-grown terrorists brainwashed by trans ideology,” it’s being reported that the FBI is discussing “treating Trans Individuals as a subset of its new threat category - Nihilistic Violent Extremists” or NVEs (a category created earlier this year). What’s an NVE, you ask?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines “Nihilistic Violent Extremism” as “criminal conduct… in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos.” There is, of course, not one bit of evidence that suggests trans folx are fomenting terrorism, but facts and evidence don’t matter in a budding autocracy, right?

Wrong.

Fact - y’all’s president and his cronies, with guidance from a white supremacist terrorist group masquerading as a think tank, are planning to define 1% of the U.S. population as domestic terrorists in a country where cishet males of pallor are literally terrorizing people every day.

Fact - less than 1% of mass shooters in U.S. history identified as trans. Cis males are 98% of mass shooters in U.S. history. Cishet males of pallor make up 54% of the recorded mass shooters in U.S. history.

Fact - the FBI currently has 11 known and registered white supremacist terrorist sects that they are supposed to be monitoring the activities of. I’ll let you guess the racial and gender identities of 96% of their members.

Fact - 1% of the population can’t be a terrorist group. That’s not anywhere near the population number and demographic structure it would need to be for a legitimate FBI to consider a subset of the citizenry a legitimate threat, a recorded terroristic threat, or a group that should warrant attention.

Fact - this sh-- they’re trying to pull is intentional, targeted, and violent transphobia and hatred. Pure and simple.

Contrary to popular belief, facts still matter. Facts aren’t dead.

But the way we use those facts to mobilize, stand with, and protect people and communities being targeted by hate could be, though.

It's well past time for folx to decide to stand up and fight the way we should in the face of transphobia, bigotry, and hatred or decide the facts make them too uncomfortable to care about their fellow human beings in danger.

This Week's Opening Thought: July 22, 2025

Trigger warning: anti-Black woman hate and harm, anti-Black violence, murder of Black bodies, transphobia, white supremacy.

This week's opening thought: Brett Hankinson, one of the Louisville police officers who murdered Breonna Taylor in her home on March 13, 2020, is due to be sentenced this afternoon. As we wait in unity with Breonna's family for a verdict that somewhat resembles some kind of justice, never forget that y'all's president's hateful and racist Department of Justice has recommended that Brett serve just one day in prison and three years of supervised release for his violent actions, a sentence that will likely never be served due to time served. Also, never forget that this recommendation was pushed forward by the chief of the Justice Department's civil rights unit.

Yep, you read that right.

The Justice Department's civil rights unit is pushing for a violent man of pallor to get a slap on the wrist for his contribution to the murder of a Black woman whose home was invaded and riddled with bullets.

And who was the person tasked with the responsibility of submitting this request to the Louisville courts?

Harmeet K. Dhillon, an Indian woman who has led a privileged life defending people of pallor's "civil liberties" through private practice and her legal nonprofit, the Center for American Liberty. What kind of "civil liberties" are Harmeet and her team fighting for?

Harmeet was the main leader of the legal fight against California’s stay-at-home order during COVID. Harmeet has also supported such wonderful people as a group of "non-transitioners," people who feel that they made a mistake during their transitions who now want to stop everyone from seeking gender-affirming care, a young male of pallor in Texas who claims he was racially discriminated against in school due to showing up every day in his MAGA hat while espousing MAGA talking points, and multitudes of "concerned" parents of pallor who believe their children are being indoctrinated with DEI and LGBTQIA+ "ideologies."

The truth is, Harmeet could care less about actual civil rights but, evidently, her "tireless" work defending and supporting people who want to harm other people because they think it's their right to do so - and fragile people of pallor in general - made her y'all's president's top choice to lead the Justice Department's civil rights division.

And why does Brett Hankinson deserve such a non-sentence? According to Harmeet, Brett's life has been ruined and he's already paid enough for his actions so why punish him more? Because, you know, Breonna Taylor's life is worth a day in prison and some supervision.

Breonna deserved better.

Breonna's family deserves better.

Black women deserve better.

But we live in the United States of America, so none of us should be shocked that a man like Brett's "suffering" matters more than the life of a young Black woman whose life was taken due to hateful action from violent police officers.

This Week's Opening Thought: July 14, 2025

Trigger warning: brief mentions of sexual abuse, pedophilia, and human trafficking.

This week's opening thought: It is wild to me that after everything we've all collectively had to endure with y'all's president and his administration, not to mention the things they've done that have targeted the most impoverished and vulnerable communities in our country, that the one thing y'all's president's fanbase is angry with him about isn't his "big, beautiful bill," tariffs, constant warmongering, and the upcoming widespread harm to their lives, medical care access, and financial situations but the DAMN JEFFREY EPSTEIN FILES.

Like, I'm not against outing pedophiles, abusers, and wealthy creatures who have engaged in assault and human trafficking. Far from it. Get 'em all, regardless of their political affiliations. But MAGA folx, y'all's president gaslighting y'all about the Epstein evidence and documentation we've all known has existed for some time is the one thing that was somehow the final straw? I mean, he's been gaslighting y'all MAGA folx for years now and doing harm to you and your families for 10 years, but this was somehow all that y'all could stand and y'couldn't stand no more? Y'all are burning your MAGA hats and posting TikTok diatribes with tears in your eyes over this situation when he's been dogwalkin' y'all for a decade and telling you to your face that you're better off with him as y'all's president when you weren't? And you've been defending y'all's president and his billionaire buddies for years because he told y'all to, even when it was obvious they were doing heinous things he was protecting them from having to atone for, but NOW you're enraged?

I ... don't even know how to begin to unpack that.

That's gotta be some damn good Kool-Aid for y'all to keep drinking it this long. What did he do, swap out the sugar for Sweet'n Low?

White supremacy is wild, y'all.

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.