This Week's Opening Thought: March 20, 2023

This week's opening thought: if someone calls you in regarding your actions and behaviors, actions and behaviors that uphold or amplify hate, racism, anti-Blackness, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and all the intersections of oppression, and your apology is less of an apology and more of an excuse as to why you did or said what you did or said or a way to posit yourself as a victim guess what?

It's not a proper apology.

Try again.

This time with feeling.

This Week's Opening Thought: March 6, 2023

This week's opening thought: If you live in the United States, you live in a country that is more scared of gender expression in the arts and entertainment and drag shows "harming children" than they are of domestic white terrorism and a lack of gun control, which at this point are the number one killers and traumatizers of U.S. children.

I don't care what anyone says; I have never felt endangered by any person's gender expression being shared with me, personally or through entertainment. I have not seen gender expression harm or murder children in the United States, and I likely never will.

But I sure as fuck am scared of disgruntled fragile white men with automatic weapons.

And I'm equally as scared of the danger U.S. children face when they go to school daily or live in communities impacted by poverty, systemic oppression, and violence.

But you know Drag Queen Story Time at the local library is the scourge of our nation.

Glad to see lawmakers across the United States have their priorities in check.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 27, 2023

This week’s opening thought: Rage applying.

Rage. Applying.

One of you business magazine writer fools made a catchy name for getting tired of your manager treating you like crap, paying you like crap, and overworking the crap out of you, leading you to apply to other jobs so you can stop wading in crap.

🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♀️🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏿‍♂️🤦🏿‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️

Parental advisory. Cursing ahead.

What in the fucking hell is wrong with us?!

How horrible is the work culture in the United States if this is the current topic of conversation, twisted to make it appear as if workers, not employers, are the problem?

This isn’t new shit. This is called, “This job sucks! I’m gonna find another job while keeping this one so I can survive long enough to get out of here.” People have been doing this for a century!

Pardon my French, but I fucking hate these cute-ass names y’all keep coming up with to absolve leadership and decision-makers in organizations from taking responsibility for the toxic, degrading, abusive environments they create and perpetuate.

Employers? You’re the reason you keep losing talented people.

Accept responsibility, address the harm you’ve caused with your policies and leadership choices, and do better.

Managers and supervisors? You’re also the reason you keep losing talented people.

Accept responsibility, address the harm you’ve caused, and do better.

Fucking rage applying. Geezus.

It’s just applying for other employment opportunities because you know you deserve better.

Y’all come up with one more damn cutesy name, and I’m comin’ by your house for a chat.

Here’s a new word for y’all to focus on: ACCOUNTABILITY.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 20, 2023

This week’s opening thought: There is nothing wrong with side-eying advice given to you by people who lack an understanding of your culture and the impacts of heteronormative white supremacist ideology while exhibiting a paper-thin knowledge of the historical context of the trauma inflicted on your people or community.

White “professionals” call themselves giving me advice all the time yet lash out whenever I offer them some counter-advice about addressing how their privilege, white privilege, and perspectives cultivated through a whiteness lens shape the advice they give. Every time it happens, I shake my head and keep it movin’. Real talk? They’ve just made my not listening to anything they say to “advise” me on how to live my life that much easier.

Your advice lacks validity if you can’t acknowledge how your advice might not work for everyone’s circumstances or how your advice could ignite or exacerbate trauma for folx from some communities.

What works for a white man rarely works for a Black woman.

What works for a queer-identifying white person usually doesn’t work for a queer-identifying person from a Global Majority community.

What works for a non-disabled person comes with many hurdles for someone with a disability.

If you’re out here trying to give advice but can’t take in how your power and positionality permeate your advice? You’re Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz.

And no one should want to be seen in the same light as Phil or Mehmet.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 13, 2023

This week's opening thought, especially for white people and Black people who have used Black women as the holders of their trauma and enmeshed white supremacist ideologies for centuries: Black women don't owe you anything.

They don't owe you knowledge or advice, labor, or entertainment. They don't owe you an "incredible" Super Bowl halftime show based on what you think you "deserve" to watch. They don't owe you 60+ hours per week in the workplace to do work you'll take credit for while still talking over them in meetings and disregarding their needs. They don't have to meet ridiculous capitalist and anti-Black expectations - expectations and pressure that you're harboring in your body and won't process yet expect a Black woman to hold and process for you - to be considered incredible or excellent. They don't owe you ego-stroking to cater to your white supremacist need for comfort. They don't owe you the opportunity to force them to shrink themselves, their goals, their joy, and their identities so you can feel good about your self-image, intelligence, or work ethic.

Black women owe you nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

But many of y'all owe Black women the world and then some, and you have for a very long time.

It's about time y'all paid what you owe.