This Week's Opening Thought: October 3, 2022

Image description: a meme. The following words are at the top of the meme: "There's so much to learn about racism! Where do I start? Oh! I know! I'll ask every person of color I know!' Anti-Starter Kit." Below those words are the Google logo, a library card, a stack of anti-racism books, and the logos for Hulu, Netflix, and Prime Video.

This week's opening thought for white folx who recently "discovered" racism, anti-Blackness, and white supremacy: there are way too many learning tools at your disposal at this point for you to place your "learning needs" on the melanated folx in your life. 

There are thousands of documentaries, films, and literature on the abovementioned subjects. Yet some of y'all act as if you've never heard of Netflix or the library before. And I know y'all have heard of Netflix because some of y'all have some "opinions" about The Sandman that you've shared with myself and other melanated folx that clearly shows you have a lot of learning and unlearning to do.

Life isn't a school group project where somebody else does the heavy lifting, and you get a passing grade. You have to do YOUR part in YOUR unlearning and self-reflection - and that "your" part is, like, 95% of the work you need to do to maintain and sustain being actively anti-racist and anti-oppressive. That part has nothin' to do with my Black ass. People of color, Black people, Black women, do not owe you "free" learning experiences that cost us our energy, dignity, and peace.

You better hit up Google, Hulu, and the library, yo.

[Image description: a meme. The following words are at the top of the meme: "There's so much to learn about racism! Where do I start? Oh! I know! I'll ask every person of color I know!' Anti-Starter Kit." Below those words are the Google logo, a library card, a stack of anti-racism books, and the logos for Hulu, Netflix, and Prime Video.]

[Image Description: a meme of Spongebob Squarepants getting up from a chair. He has an exasperated look on his face. Above him is the tagline, "Me when white 'professionals' find out that I do anti-racism and equity consulting and want to 'impress me' by telling me they're on the diversity committee at work." A word balloon can be seen coming from Spongebob with the words, "A'ight...I'mma head out."]

Seriously, white "professionals." It's nowhere near as impressive as you think it is. People of color, Black people, are doing heavy, emotionally, and mentally taxing work that often hits trauma points in our experiences as melanated people even when we're not doing equity and anti-racism work for a living. Y'all are attending a 60-minute meeting twice a month.

That don't impress me much.

We are not doing the same work.

[Image Description: a meme of Spongebob Squarepants getting up from a chair. He has an exasperated look on his face. Above him is the tagline, "Me when white 'professionals' find out that I do anti-racism and equity consulting and want to 'impress me' by telling me they're on the diversity committee at work." A word balloon can be seen coming from Spongebob with the words, "A'ight...I'mma head out."]

This Week's Opening Thought: September 26, 2022

This week’s opening thought: Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka is in the news for having a consensual relationship with a cis female staff member of the Boston Celtics organization. The fallout of this abuse of power has dominated segments of the news cycle for days. And yes, before anyone decides to go in on me, this situation is an abuse of power. We’re not going to debate that. And while I have a fundamental problem with people in power having relationships with employees in their organizations who have less power and stature within said organizations, there’s one thing that stood out for me in all the news coverage of Udoka’s indiscretions:

NFL football legend Brett Favre helped a group of white folx commit large-scale welfare fraud, and no one is talking about it.

A rich white cis male who made his money in a heteronormative sport is being investigated for blatant large-scale welfare fraud, and the press and the sports media have barely discussed it.

It’s not even second-page news at this point.

As the situation with Ime Udoka unfolds, its fallout should be the point of discussion around more significant conversations regarding abuses of power and control in our workplaces. But to act like Brett Favre and a group of white people who saw a system to exploit shouldn’t also be a discussion we should be having parallel to the Udoka conversation is surreal.

If we’re talking about abuses of power and privilege, we need to be talking about all of the abuses of power and privilege, not just the ones with melanated folx in the forefront as public figures.

P.S.: Impoverished Black folx in Mississippi are also at the forefront as public figures in the large-scale welfare fraud that Favre and his homies perpetrated. This fraud harms Black communities. The news cycles want to act like they aren’t at the forefront and that their harm isn’t worth discussing. If you learn one thing today, understand that whiteness will always use melanin to harm others, whether as full-on spectacles or bodies to sweep under the rug.

On Anniversaries, Trauma, and Where We Are

TW: anti-Blackness, domestic terrorism, hate crime.

Today is the 59th anniversary of the anti-Black hate crime that was the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. "Anniversary" is probably the wrong word, especially when your experience in the United States and western culture is perforated with monumental events of mourning and loss, but it is an anniversary nonetheless.

On the morning of September 15, 1963, four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The dynamite-fueled explosion injured 22 people and murdered four young Black girls.

The girls were all under the age of 14.

Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair should still be here today, spending time with their families, possible children, and grandchildren. They should be in their late 60s and early 70s, with many more years of joy and happiness ahead of them. They committed no crime, no sin. They were just at church with their families on a Sunday morning.

Yet here we are.

The senseless, hateful murders of these four young Black girls were part of the catalyst that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Their blood permeates the ink and paper used to draft and sign the Civil Rights Act into law. Their families' pain and trauma should resonate with the politicians tasked with upholding federal hate crime laws. Many state and federal officials currently serving communities across the United States spent their formative years in the 50s and 60s and have seen the effects of anti-Blackness and white supremacy on multiple levels.

Yet here we are, with politicians decrying critical race theory and passing laws to ensure no one talks about legitimate U.S. history in our schools.

Fifty-nine years ain't that long ago, y'all. Fifty-nine years is more than enough time for white people who were also under 14 years of age in 1963 to have evolved into better people than their parents.

Yet here we are.

On Melanin, Mermaids, and Well Water

The white folx out here mad about Black elves, mermaids, and extraterrestrials in television shows and films are the same white folx who are also mad whenever Black folx, Black women, in their workplaces get leadership roles, promotions, and salary increases.

The waters of their hate and intolerance in both instances are pumped from the same well.

Don't act like this hate is about "preserving the source material," "honoring the original novels," or anything like that. It's about white folx preserving what they think is theirs, what they believe is owed to them. It's about believing their identity is the only identity that matters at work and in the media they consume. It's about the unwillingness to sit with the belief that heroes and leaders can be green, orange, pale, have face ridges, pointy ears, fangs, tails, and a whole lot of other incredulous things going on, but them being Black? That's "too much." Why?

Because they believe Black people aren't heroes or protagonists, they believe Black people can't be leaders and experts in their fields. They can't be heroes. They can't be the main character of the story. They can't lead industries and shape workplaces. Why?

For many white people, Blackness being anything more than chattel slavery and centuries of systemic oppression is unbelievable. For them, being Black and a leader and protagonist is more of a fantasy than hobbits, elves, mermaids, explorers, leaders, and superheroes. For many white people, Black folx are and will always be less than, which means that we're not worthy of being heroes, leaders, protagonists, or new interpretations of stories and characters that whiteness has deemed white classics.

Some white people need to own that they want their workplaces, television, films, and literature to prescribe to 3/5 Compromise logic. Own who you are and what you believe. You'll still be foolish and hateful, but you won't look as silly as some white person on the internet raging over a mermaid being Black when their ancestors threw my ancestors' deceased or weary Black bodies off of slave ships to the bottom of the ocean.

Never mind. You'll still look just as silly.

Your white supremacy is showing. Might wanna tuck that in.