On Pride Month, Performative Nonsense, and Stepping Up or Stepping Out of the Way

It’s Pride Month, which sadly ranks up there in performative pallor energy with Black History Month on the “I’m a Good Person” scale. Months that are equal parts celebration and memorial always hit a certain way, especially if your identities are intersectional with a splash of melanin. With the state of intentionally harmful practices aimed at trans and queer folx currently taking laps through the counties and communities that collectively operate under the United States of America brand, months like this feel more meaningful…which makes it all feel more tenuous and precarious than usual.

As a queer-identifying person who hasn't had to constantly have my sexuality and sexual identities questioned and threatened by "sleuths" who think that have everyone pegged, I have been able to use the little bit of privilege and positionality I have to educate, correct, and chin check “allies,” melanated misanthropes, and alabaster homophones and transphobes without them seeing it coming. I say all of that not to brag or boast. There's nothing to brag and boast about. I have privilege and positionality, and I use them to support others without the need for kudos and cookies. No, I say all of that to amplify one simple idea:

It's easy as f--- to step up, speak up, speak out, call in, call out, and fight for people facing harm, death, and oppression.

And you don't need a special month or brand name merchandise to do that sh--.

We don't have time for y'all pulling us aside after a work meeting to "apologize" for Bill from Accounting being a toxic ghost that none of y'all who share his lack of melanin have the backbone to stand up to.

Ain't nobody got time for your low-key "apologies" when your ashy homophobic and transphobic family members aren't present to hear that you stand with your LGBTQIA+ friends and family members and that their anti-Black bigotry is not a good look.

You either stand with and fight for folx in the now or admit that you don't care about their later.

Performative activism is a choice. It's not and never has been the only choice, but a whole lot of y'all so-called "allies" love to act as such.

Just sayin.'

Happy Pride, my peoples.

On Job Postings and Choices

Everyday I see a new job posting that makes me want to take a nap.

Like, companies, recruiters: y'all still leaving the salary out of job postings, huh? And making candidates go through a whole recruitment process just to have to awkwardly ask for the salary numbers because you don't want to give them this information freely?

Well, well.

That's...a choice.

A REALLY STUPID choice, but a choice nonetheless.

Also looks like y'all are also still makin' sure everyone knows you're lookin' for "unicorns" and "rockstars" too while offering a job posting with so many job functions that it's obviously two jobs you've merged into one, like some kind of Cronenberg experiment.

Again, that...is a choice.

A REALLY STUPID choice, but a choice.

And y'all still making these kinds of choices in this economy? As the world is on fire and people ain't puttin' up with that bullsh-- anymore?

OK.

Good luck with that.

On Working While Black

Maintaining employment while Black, and trying to make sure you're not being mentally, emotionally, and physically harmed by white supremacy and bigotry while doing so, is...exhausting. And I'm going to stick with the word exhausting because other words I would use are considered expletives.

I'm Black and tired. Always.

Even when I'm at my most rested, there's always an underlying tiredness that comes from living and existing in a world that does not care about you and processing the generational and societal trauma in my Black body to be the healthiest version of myself I can be. And employment being a horrible reflection of the world we live in does nothing to abate that underlying tiredness.

Neither does knowing that what I'm feeling in my brain and body is amplified by five for Black queer folx and times-ten for Black women.

Capitalism while Black is [insert expletive here].

On Saving Those Not Worthy of Your Save

It's the year of someone's Lord 2025 and a whole bunch of y'all are still out here trying to "get through to" hateful, willfully ignorant bigots, hoping to convert them.

Oh, Bro, Broseph, Bro-ham.

Oh, Sister, Sis, Ma'am.

Oh, my friend, my compadre, my peoples.

Y'all gotta stop with the tryin' to save these people.

To paraphrase light-skinned Jermaine, they don't wanna be saved.

People are defending Diddy and Tory Lanez out here, and trying to shame and ridicule those they've harmed. You can't save anybody that deeply enmeshed in that level of misogynoir.

There's a whole bunch of [redacted] people mad that Black folx are happy about the Nottaway Plantation roasting 'til the meat fell off the bone who have the audacity to call it a historical landmark and say tasteless nonsense like, "How would you feel if Auschwitz burned down like this?" You think you're gonna save someone who spews something so simultaneously anti-Black and anti-semetic that it'll make your head spin off of your neck?

There are millions of people who have spent the last 12 years voting for this current administration, knowing damn well what they were backing. Many of them are gleeful about the harm y'all's president and his Dollar General Batman villains are doing to communities across this country, including their own communities. You can't save somebody whose hatred for others is so powerful that they're willing to fall on their own sword multiple times to justify their hatred.

The past 12+ years in this country have made it clear - explicitly clear - that it's time to leave some people behind. If you haven't pivoted already, consider this your notice to turn around and walk away from hateful people and their unflinching toxicity. Focus your energies on the folx in your life and community that need support, because those are the folx who deserve your help and care.

Everybody ain't worth savin', regardless of their relation or degrees of separation from you and yours.

Hate doesn't deserve so much of your love.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 12, 2025

This week's opening thought: Two things that I can always rely on with people of pallor is that 1) they will always say/do the quiet part out loud, and 2) they will make up any narrative they can to "protect" their own.

Melanated refugees seeking asylum for safety reasons? Nope. Y'all's president placed an indefinite suspension on refugee resettlement in the U.S. because he insists that they're "eating the dogs and cats" or MS-13 or flooding in from the insane asylums and mental institutions and harming *cough* white *cough* U.S. Americans. Not true, but when has that stopped people of pallor in power?

So, no refugees are currently welcome in the U.S....except for select refugees of pallor, of course. Case in point: a plane full of fragile-ass pale South Afrikaners, descended from Dutch people who subjugated, enslaved, harmed, oppressed, and killed Black South Africans for a damn generation, landed in D.C. today and received a warm welcome.

Now you might be asking yourself, "Are they in danger?" followed by "Why are they getting an exemption when so many people in need aren't?" And, on the surface, that's a solid pair of questions. But if you're asking yourself those questions, you're likely a person of pallor who has somehow missed how white supremacy works, especially when people of pallor are scared that their power is slipping away in an ever-changing populace that ain't playin' their colonizer games anymore.

According to y'all's president, these South Afrikaners are "victims of unjust racial discrimination." Mind you, the average household of pallor in South Africa owns 20 times the wealth of the average Black household, according to the Review of Political Economy, an international academic journal, but they are definitely "victims of unjust racial discrimination." You see, South Africa passed a land law earlier this year that aims to make it easier for the state to expropriate land in the public interest. Although no land has been seized by South Africa's government, the South Afrikaners are freaking out and in pure victim mode, mainly because they "own" a whole lot of stolen land they've "inherited" from their crappy ancestors, people who had no right to it in the first place. Hence y'all's president, likely at the prompting of Elon Musk but also because he sees dollar signs and pallor-derived generational wealth, making a large, concerted effort to resettle wealthy South Afrikaners in the United States.

So let's take a moment to break this down, shall we?

Black South Africans who have a right to their land are the villains because they want to take steps to expropriate their land. Not all of it, mind you, but probably enough to take care of Black South Africans and narrow the wealth and ownership gaps. And these dusty South Afrikaners are "resilient", "victims," and "oppressed."

It's enough to make you want to take a damn nap.

Pallor "protecting" pallor.

So predictable and weak.