Monday's Opening Thought: June 14, 2021

This week’s opening thought, for white people and people of color with power and privilege: If you do or say something racist and harmful to a Black, Brown, or Indigenous person, a person of color, they do not owe you the opportunity to explain why you did or said what you did or said. That’s not how this works. What you’re exhibiting are abuser mannerisms and behaviors. The harmed party does not owe you the space to explain away your harmful actions or rhetoric.

Understand that. Digest that. Your actions are your cross to bear and not the burden of those you harm. You will need to atone for your words and actions on your time and not off of the backs of those you’ve harmed.

And guess what? You lashing out at the person you’ve harmed because they won’t give you the opportunity to “explain it away?” Yeah, that’s abuser behavior too. Just sayin’.

Monday's Opening Thought: June 7, 2021

This week’s opening thought: If you are white and you’re against Critical Race Theory being taught in schools but have never actually read any credible CRT essays and the only things you “know” about CRT you read on a Twitter or Facebook thread or heard from a conservative politician or talking head? Congratulations!

You are your white ancestors’/colonizers’ wildest white supremacist dream.

Embrace who you are the way your ancestors openly embraced their hate and views around melanated people existing. Don’t be shy! You might as well go all in and embody the beliefs and support the oppressive states and laws that CRT was created to analyze and educate people on.

And if you’re Black or a person of color and you’re against Critical Race Theory being taught in schools but have never actually read any credible CRT essays and the only things you “know” about CRT you read on a Twitter or Facebook thread or heard from a conservative politician or talking head?

You’re choosing lies and talking points over educating yourself against being some white ancestor’s/colonizer’s dream. That’s a dangerous soapbox to stand on. And it’s a perilous hill to die on.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 31, 2021

This week’s opening thought: The discussions around “getting back to normal” have been ramping up lately. In the workplace, on the news, from the lips of the President of the United States. So many people just want to “go back to normal,” to roam free and do whatever they want with no restrictions. What some folx still refuse to acknowledge is that what they want is a particular narcissistic kind of “normalcy.” They refuse to see other people’s “normal.” “Normal” for way too many people - Black people, Brown people, Indigenous communities, AAPI communities, people with disabilities, queer communities, trans folx - is dangerous on multiple fronts. It’s a world of gaslighting and liabilities that many of us are not looking forward to diving back into.

You want “normal?” Well, let me share with you a piece of my “normal” that I wasn’t looking forward to engaging with again as we collectively are forced to segue back into “normalcy”: my “normal” experience shopping for groceries.

As I shopped this past weekend for groceries for the week it was the first time in 15 months where I found myself facing all of my pre-pandemic woes around shopping:

-White people practically pushing past me and damn near through me to get to something on a shelf when I’m not obstructing their ability to grab items in any way.

-White women invading my personal space, often going under my arms while I’m grabbing items from high shelves or trapping themselves between me and a shelf.

-White people taking up entire aisles with their carts, oblivious to my existence or need to get down an aisle.

-White people acting like me saying “excuse me” to move past them obstructing movement is egregious behavior and looking at me as such.

-Security guards following me around sections of the store.

-Self-checkout cashiers watching me like a hawk, counting my scans to see if I’m ringing up all 10 yogurts in my cart and wanting to look in my cart.

I haven’t had to deal with most of these things, especially not all in one trip, for over a year. But we’re “getting back to normal” so here we are, back to oscillating between feeling like a criminal, invisible, and a person people view as an inconvenience on a grocery run. “Normal” represents oppression for me, and not just in the supermarket. And I know I’m not alone. I’m not the only one viewing “normal” as a return to being disregarded, ignored, harmed, killed on a broader scale.

I’ll take a few more months of “not normal” please and thank you.

The Decision

Big ol' announcement time!

So, anyone who knows me, my work, and how I do my work knows that I look at equity, anti-racism, inclusion, and combating anti-Blackness as work that can have a reverberative impact. What do I mean by reverberative impact? Initiating difficult conversations, implementing realistic initiatives, and guiding work that will stand the test of time, move organizations and institutions forward, and leave organizations in a position to maintain being actively anti-racist and equitable for years to come that impacts not just the employees of an organization but the communities they serve. I've been looking for a role like this for a few years now.

Today I wanna announce that I'm taking my talents...to South Beach!

Nah, I'm kidding. I'm taking my talents to Portland Community College!

Starting in June, I'll be joining PCC as an Organizational Development Representative. My work will be focused solely on addressing culture, anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and combating anti-Blackness. This won't be an easy job (being a Black guy talking about these topics in white workplaces never is) but it is an opportunity to create a reverberative impact that serves the community.

As a graduate of PCC, I am looking forward to seeing how I can help PCC navigate the uncomfortable waters of inequity, exclusion, and anti-Blackness to build a stronger culture!