This Week's Opening Thought: September 12, 2022

This week's opening thought: Real talk? I have no energy to put into debates with white people and Global Majority folx who are unwilling to untether themselves from white supremacy's anchors about topics like Queen Elizabeth II's passing. Her family has all the right in the world to mourn her passing. But if we're all expected to collectively front about what the Royal Family has, does, and will continue to represent on a global scale and act like the now-deceased Queen wasn't someone who capitalized from and perpetuated colonization and hate, then we're trippin', y'all.

We're supposed to all be mourning the passing of a person with a title that doesn't matter anymore who didn't want melanated children in her family, obviously looked down on most people and communities of color across the world, and has hundreds of white supremacist colonizer photo ops on the books. Y'all serious?

Nah. I'm tight. Miss me with that.

No debate.

I will put some energy into debating with y'all Jay-Z's "God Did" verse, however. Frankly, it's not his best work, yet some of y'all are acting like it's the verse of the year! What's up with that?

Discuss.

On Job Duties, Burnout, and Being "Grateful for the Opportunity"

Workplaces pay people $15 or less per hour and expect the equivalent of a $40 per hour employee's work rate and workload in return with no "guff" from those employees.

Workplaces pay people $40 per hour and expect people to give them the equivalent of absolute subservience while being willing to have no boundaries around separating their work from their life and needs with no backtalk or asking for a lighter load.

Neither situation is equitable.

No position should ever feel so overwhelming that people are in a constant state of burnout.

No position should ever be set up in a way that makes employees feel like if they speak up about how their role overwhelms them, they'll lose their job or face retaliation.

No one should be made to feel they should be "grateful for an opportunity," so they should "earn their pay" and overwork when companies could take the time to distribute job duties among multiple positions to mitigate burnout.

Companies need to quit actin' as if they own us when we agree to work for them and have the right to drain us.

Companies need to build more equitable job descriptions that factor in what a legitimately reasonable workload looks like for a position.

And that has nothing to do with whether you're paying someone $15 or $40 an hour.

This Week's Opening Thought: September 6, 2022

This week’s opening thought: people change when they feel it is worthwhile for them and the people in their lives to change and evolve, to be better, more equitable, and humane individuals.

The homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, ableist, racist, classist, white supremacy-driven, religion-bashing people in your life could change if they felt it was worthwhile.

But they don’t.

Real talk? No matter how much you try to reason with those family members, parents, long-time friends, and co-workers to help them see how their hateful views harm you and others, you’ll walk away sad and frustrated. No matter how much empathy you try to hold for them, those people send you a loud and clear message: changing their beliefs for you isn’t a worthwhile enough endeavor.

Yeah, that sounds harsh. I know it does. And I don’t mean to harm anyone with these words. But I have been on the journey you’re likely on right now, trying to “reform” hateful people, and that journey is a long and painful one that rarely yields positive dividends. Some people in your life will never stop being harmful to you, no matter how much they swear they love and care about you. Who you are will always be in direct opposition with their comfort and need to be hateful to avoid processing their traumas.

You deserve better relationships than that. We all do.

Don’t allow co-dependence and the “eternal hope” that someone will change and evolve to stop you from seeing that it is time for your energy to be placed elsewhere. You deserve warmth and sunshine, not a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Image Description: a tweet from Twitter with the following words in black text: "Hon, is everything ok? You’ve barely touched your 2020 DEI initiative."

"Hon, is everything ok? You’ve barely touched your 2020 DEI initiative."

It's because they thought they wanted a DEI initiative for dinner, but they really wanted Dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and a pudding cup.

[Image Description: a tweet from Twitter with the following words in black text: "Hon, is everything ok? You’ve barely touched your 2020 DEI initiative."]