On Talking "Like a Portlander," Microaggressions, and White Advice

Someone in a senior leadership role recently told me that I wasn't connecting with white people in a particular workplace around the topics of racism and white supremacy because I wasn't from the Pacific Northwest. They said that because I'm from Michigan, Detroit to be exact, my communication style was different. This difference, they said, was in direct opposition to how white Portlanders communicate and "build relationships" in the workplace. This senior leader told me that if I made an effort to communicate in a more "Pacific Northwest" style and "put in the extra effort" to be more likable and approachable, I would be successful.

I'm glad I wasn't holding a LaCroix™ at the time because I would've sure enough spilled it. After all, the winds from the hurricane of microaggressions in their "advice" should've blown me over and washed me away.

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What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: April 19, 2022 Edition

In today's edition of "What In the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?", we find ourselves in the world of non-fiction books where a white cis female theologian who is known for writing about Quakers received grant money and secured a publishing deal for her book about trap feminism.

You read that right.

A white woman wrote a book about trap feminism.

And she's mad that Black women are angry about this nonsense she wrote, to the point where she's blocking Black women on social media and deleting their reviews of her toxic piece of watered-down literature.

You can't make this stuff up, y'all, even if you wanted to. And if you're going to? You should probably seek some counseling.

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What In The Hell Is Wrong With This Country?: April 10, 2022 Edition

In today’s edition of “What In the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?”, we find ourselves in Illinois, where a church and its congregation have decided on a “fast from whiteness” for Lent.

You read that right.

“Fasting from whiteness.”

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On Urgency and Making Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.

I made oatmeal raisin cookies the other day. Why? Because I had a hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies. So I set the oven to 350, made cookie dough, dolloped heaping globs of dough on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, and made two batches of oatmeal raisin cookies.

I made them while amid two virtual meetings.

I interrupted those meetings to check on my oatmeal raisin cookies' progress and put the second batch in the oven.

And I told the people I was in those meetings with why I was putting them on hold.

Some of y'all might consider that "unprofessional." Some of y'all might think that I wasn't present or focused on the content of those meetings. In response to those notions, I share two things:

1. What you call "unprofessional" I call refuting white supremacist workplace culture and white supremacist ideology. Sit down and unpack that on your time.

2. I was present and focused on the parts of those meetings that pertained to me and my work. It isn't my fault that those meetings were heavily bogged down with white supremacist urgency. White workplaces and their urgency, their need to make everything a DEFCON-5 situation, has nothing to do with me and my work. It's not my job to carry white supremacist workplace ideology in my brain, body, or soul. Real talk? Me making cookies was more important than their urgency. Why?

Me making those cookies symbolizes how we all need to work on not carrying the burden of every little thing happening at work and elevating them to urgent matters. Why is it so "urgent" now if this "urgent matter" wasn't urgent a week ago, a month ago, three months ago when it was at its apex? And why aren't y'all ever this urgent when homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, and intersectional hate is playing out in your workplace?

Do you know what was urgent, however?

Eating them oatmeal raisin cookies. Not only were they delicious, but I also enjoyed them with no stress in my body or weight on my mind.

Don't walk around with the random crises at your workplace on your shoulders or weighing down your mind. Most of what happens at work every day isn't a crisis: it's white supremacy and patriarchy in action. And if your workplace doesn't want to address these issues but wants to freak out over that report that is suddenly due in 48 hours?

Set your boundaries and make yourself some damn cookies.

[Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.]

On Judge Ketanji, Supporting Black Women, and Figuring Out When to Fall Back

I'm not watching the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I'm not watching because I like my peace of mind, and I think we all knew this would be some racist, white supremacist, misogynistic, anti-Black nonsense. From what I'm seeing of the snippets and clips I've stumbled across over the last few days? I was right.

These mediocre white folx, white folx who have accomplished nothing in their lives outside of bringing their hate into national politics, are deadset on attacking Ketanji's intelligence. They're throwing all sorts of CRT fear-mongering and random vaguely abortion-related questions. The anti-Black rhetoric, the abrasiveness, the pushiness coming out of these white politicians' mouths as she maintains herself and doesn't crumble under their hatred is a window into what Black women face just trying to exist in this world every day. And this is why I can't watch these events in real-time.

Existing shouldn't always have to be this damn hard, y'all.

Being a Black woman shouldn't always have to be this hard.

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