This Week's Opening Thought: March 27, 2023

This week's opening thought: white supremacy in action is when elected officials decide the best way to handle their unfounded fears and insecurities about a popular phone app is to hold public hearings around banning its use.

White supremacy is when the popular phone app you claim you're scared of does the same data collecting that other apps do, yet it is somehow "more dangerous" because it's a Chinese-owned company.

White supremacy is attacking the app company's Singaporean CEO with an hours-long "line of questioning" that's a thinly-veiled xenophobic and anti-Asian hate crime played out on a world stage.

White supremacy in action is also when a major clothing company decides that it's easier to use AI-generated models than to put in the work to source and hire models outside of the white physical "body standard" norm.

White supremacy in action is when you could make an effort to find and elevate Black and Brown models, Indigenous models, Asian models, Pacific Islander models, models with disabilities, and models with a variety of body shapes but decide using computer-generated images is good enough.

White supremacy in action is the company sharing this change in a major press release and wording it in such a way that the decision-makers in their company believe they should get kudos for their new "revolutionary diversity efforts."

On the surface, these two situations may seem separate to some of you. But don't get it twisted. They are branches from the same old haggard tree.

That tree desperately needs a wind storm to uproot its gnarled and deeply-rooted grip on the soil of generations.

On HR and Being The Right Hand of The King

Image description: a comic strip. In the strip, a person dressed in medieval king regalia walks away from a limbless black knight. The king is wielding a sword in their right hand. The letters "EE" are on his back, which is shorthand for employees. The limbless black knight's torso is upright, looking onward at the departing king. The letters "HR" are on the black knight's back, which is shorthand for human resources. Their arms and legs are strewn about. They are shouting at the king, "Come back...'tis just a flesh wound...oh, all right, we'll call it a draw!"

It is 2023. If you're an HR "professional," and after everything that has happened to melanated communities, queer communities, reproductive health, and public health over the past four years, you're still operating in your HR role like you're the right hand of the King?

You're in the wrong profession.

I hear Medieval Times is hiring.

Real talk? Your HR approach and philosophy were never what employees needed, even when conversations about the ethics and execution of HR were merely whispers between coworkers who were angry about how you treated them but knew that they didn't want to catch your ire and lose their jobs. And at this point? Your brand of HR is no longer wanted or tolerated by employees, as we all understand our rights and what your style of HR represents. The standard for what HR can and should be is higher now, and accountability for HR "professionals" is growing. That HR style you're still wielding like a broadsword? That's only wanted by senior leaders who view themselves on some King Richard sh-- who believe they need a human weapon to "control the peasants."

And some of y'all are mighty comfortable with being the sheriff of Nottingham.

Not a good look.

[Image description: a comic strip. In the strip, a person dressed in medieval king regalia walks away from a limbless black knight. The king is wielding a sword in their right hand. The letters "EE" are on his back, which is shorthand for employees. The limbless black knight's torso is upright, looking onward at the departing king. The letters "HR" are on the black knight's back, which is shorthand for human resources. Their arms and legs are strewn about. They are shouting at the king, "Come back...'tis just a flesh wound...oh, all right, we'll call it a draw!"]

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.

On Women's History Month, International Women's Day, and the Perils of White Women

It's International Women's Day today, and March is Women's History Month in the United States. While so many women have influenced me and how I view, approach, and navigate the world, from my mother in my formative years to women I am happy to call friends, chosen family, and long-time colleagues; I must admit that all of my gratitude for those women comes with a side-eye to white women.

They are the most dangerous people in my chosen profession.

They have placed me in more dangerous situations than any other group.

They have threatened my livelihood and earning potential on multiple occasions.

So it makes it hard for me and many other melanated folx to celebrate all women as deeply as we could when the specter of whiteness and the power and positionality of white women is under the surface of celebrating progress and perseverance.

Yes, it's International Women's Day, and this month is Women's History Month in the United States. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about our world and how white women impact that world. If you live in western culture and have decided to be remotely observant, you've seen firsthand how white women are placed at the forefront of women's history, like they are the only entity that has fought for earning and maintaining women's rights. But then you look at how white women vote, who they collectively posit as their "oppressors," and how they have exploited and benefited from the work and energy of melanated communities in similar and sometimes more harmful ways than white men. And that sh-- hits different. Like, women as a whole have to constantly fight for the right to exist in this world, in the United States, but I've seen so many of those fights for rights, equity, and equality be uphill battles against the opinions, power, and positionality wielded by white women.

Look, I'm not trying to be divisive or disrespect women. I am from a family of women who've persevered despite the constant harm of our world. Talking about this will likely find me dealing with a whole mess of Karen-energy emails and DMs. But real talk? I call it as I see it. And besides, I'm gonna delete your emails, so save that energy for doing better.

We should all be able and willing to celebrate, fight alongside, support, and stand with all women. But to make an already hard battle a little easier, we need white women to step it up beyond lip service and evolve away from their white supremacist ideologies.

Y'all are the roadblock for all women, white women.

It's time to start clearing the road.

P.S.: Before some of y'all chime in with the "your wife is white" comments: yes, I know. I'm aware of the fact that my wife is white. I'm also mindful of how she atones for her whiteness and consistently shows up in spaces to support Black women, melanated women, and all women with the privilege she has while taking in feedback and checking herself. We wouldn't be together if she didn't, so find a new talking point to diminish the truth.

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.