The (Self-Proclaimed) World's Greatest Comic Drawin' HR Professional
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.
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.”
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.
As I was transferring buses on my commute to work this morning, I walked up to the stop for my second bus, where a white woman was waiting for the next leg of her trip. As I came to a stop, I sat on a bus bench about six to eight feet from where she was standing. As soon as I sat down, she immediately moved out of the space and stood on the other side of the LED sign showing the bus arrival times.
She put 10 feet and a wall between us.
And all I did was sit down at a bus stop while waiting for my bus.
Maybe she moved because I smiled at her as I approached the stop, which I unconsciously do all the time. After all, I’m friendly, but I know how people view big Black men in overwhelmingly white cities like Portland, so I try to exude an aura of "not dangerous" to minimize the unspoken fear factor I evidently add to the pot of by existing.
Maybe she moved because of my pink headphones and Singin’ in the Rain t-shirt.
Maybe she moved because my laptop bag, adorned with patches of Alfred Hitchcock, Mario, Luigi, Spider-Man, Chibi nigiri, and musubi, offended her.
Or maybe she moved because she’s racist and full of stereotypes and anti-Black rhetoric to the point where she felt the big Black guy boppin’ to Kylie Minogue posed a clear and present danger to her safety.
All I did was sit at a bus stop while waiting for my bus.
These moments happen to me all the time. I know that one misconstrued smile or glance, or a moment that I’m seen as an invader of some white person’s space, could be the difference between me getting to work on time and never going to work again. And I know that all I can do in these moments is hope that a higher power has my back because even when a Black man does the right things to protect himself, he’s still a potential bullet shelter or convict.
And all I did was sit down at a bus stop while waiting for my bus.
I got to work on time. So, there’s that.
Trigger warning: homophobia, anti-Blackness, hate crimes.
O'Shae Sibley stopped for gas at a gas station with friends. He exited the car to dance to Beyoncé's Renaissance, playing in their car. O'Shae Sibley and his friends were accosted by a group of men who "told them to stop dancing" and started using homophobic slurs. During the attack, Sibley and Otis Pena, a best friend of Sibley's, responded to the slurs used by the other men: "Stop saying that. There is nothing wrong with being gay."
During the confrontation, one of the men stabbed Sibley. O'Shae was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Otis, who tried to stop O'Shae's bleeding after the stabbing, posted a video to Facebook following his friend's death: "They murdered him because he's gay, because he stood up for his friends. His name was O'Shae, and you all killed him. You all murdered him right in front of me."
O'Shae just wanted to dance.
O'Shae was just living his joy.
But evidently, you're just not allowed to dance, be joyful, and express yourself while Black and gay.
And now O'Shae's life is over, and the just things that need to happen to avenge his unnecessary murder will likely not happen.
O'Shae just wanted to live.
Black queer people just want to live, yet we receive so much violence and homophobia and hate from inside and outside Black communities with such unrelenting torrential force that we drown in the waters generated by the spittle attached to the slurs and...
It shouldn't be this hard to just be, y'all.
It's just too damn hard.
[Image description: An image of O'Shae Sibley, a young Black man, dancing with a grouping of dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. O'Shae is at the forefront of the image, wearing a yellow sleeveless shirt and black pants. He is dancing, laughing, looking into the distance. His body language exudes joy.]
Image description: An image of O'Shae Sibley, a young Black man, dancing with a grouping of dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. O'Shae is at the forefront of the image, wearing a yellow sleeveless shirt and black pants. He is dancing, laughing, looking into the distance. His body language exudes joy.