This Week's Opening Thought: August 25, 2025

This week's opening thought: In Florida, they've legalized beating children at school.

With "parental consent," of course.

Florida's public school system is literally asking parents to sign off on giving teachers, administrators, and school officials the permission to beat their children, either as a complete thumbs up at the beginning of the school year where they can beat your kid whenever they "deem it appropriate" or on a case-by-case basis where they'll call parents to ask permission to beat their children.

Great.

Splendid.

This won't go bad in any way.

This won't generate a litany of lawsuits, years of therapy for hundreds or thousands of children, or long-term physical harm for children at the hands of adults who have been given the green light to not have their emotions in check. This won't erode the trust children should have in their parents.

Nope. This is going to go just fine.

This is where we're at now. As a country, we've got states changing the age of consent and marriage eligibility to protect adults who prey on children. We've got states drafting laws to physically abuse your children with your "permission." We have states figuring out ways to bring back child labor in full force. And all of this is coming from the political party that swears they care about the safety and needs of children and families.

Every day in the United States is another reminder that the most vulnerable citizens of this country do not matter to those who make the decisions, people who consider said vulnerable populations to be a nuisance or commodity to exploit.

On Schadenfreude, Bigotry, and Job Interviews

Image description: A male of pallor is shown in a workplace meeting, making their melanated colleagues highly uncomfortable.

One of my favorite things in the world is watching bigots being outed by the public, losing their jobs. I have no issue with hateful Karens and Chets losing their jobs after their beliefs are shared with their employers by people in the community. But while I love allowing the schadenfreude to wash over me like a gentle autumn rain, I can’t help but think about the one party in these matters that is never held accountable: the companies that hire these people.

I’ve been recruiting and interviewing people for over 20 years. I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews and led dozens of recruitments. Please believe that Karens and Chets don’t suddenly wake up one morning and decide they want to be hateful people. They are and have always been hateful people, and it comes out in their job interviews. The way they answer questions, the way they show up in spaces. The red flags are always there.

And companies hire these people anyway.

I can count on my fingers and toes multiple times how often hiring managers and department heads have willingly ignored red flags around hate and bigotry and pushed someone through a recruitment process because they “really like them,” are “a person I’d grab a beer with,” or they “remind me of myself at that age.” Why?

Because it’s easier to ride with the comforts and familiarity of white supremacy than it is to take a stance and not bring people into your organization that pose a risk to your employees and the people you serve.

It has been proven that people hire people with whom they feel comfortable. Bigots, or people who are comfortable with bigotry happening in front of them and not calling it out, hire bigots. Chets and Karens hire other Chets and Karens. It’s white supremacist workplace culture 101. And it’s never a workplace issue until that bigotry gets attached to the company name in a public way.

Chet and Karen have been doing and saying horrible things at work for years. They’ve been reported to HR and their supervisors for their harmful words and actions for years. But as soon as their hateful nonsense spills out into the public in a way that gets them screenshotted and recorded? Then it’s an immediate dismissal and a well-written PR statement touting how the company doesn’t support these views and cares about equity and inclusion. Meanwhile, everyone who has had to work with and be harmed by Karen and Chet every damn day for years has to sit with the learned understanding that their company has never really cared about equity and inclusion and has no issue with gaslighting their employees around supporting these views.

Be mad at Chet and Karen. Be glad that they’re getting their comeuppance. But save some of those side-eyes for the jerks that employed them in the first place, who now want to absolve themselves of their responsibility in giving these people a paycheck.

[Image description: A male of pallor is shown in a workplace meeting, making their melanated colleagues highly uncomfortable.]

On Rep. Nicole Collier, Texas, Democrats, and Black Women on Sabbatical

Rep. Nicole Collier, a Black woman and representative in the Texas legislature, was locked in a Texas state House Chamber overnight with her colleagues Gene Wu and Vince Perez because she and her colleagues rightfully refused to sign what was essentially a permission slip to be shadowed and surveilled by Texas law enforcement until Texas Republicans got their opportunity to vote on approving gerrymandering tactics that will render any non-Republican votes in the state damn near invalid in every election from now on.

If she signed the illegal "permission slip," Rep. Nicole would’ve had officers posted outside her Capitol office and following her everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. Democrats in Texas have shared that these police "escorts" tailed them on their Monday evening drives back to their homes after spending much of the day posted in their offices and watching their every move. One Texas Dem said their "escort" went with them for a staff lunch and even down the hallway with them for restroom breaks.

Rep. Nicole Collier was one of only three Texas Democrat who refused to sign. And her colleagues who didn't sign? Also from communities of color. Not a Representative of pallor to be found.

And so Rep. Nicole sat in a House Chamber with two of her melanated colleagues, overnight, standing up for her constituents who live in a majority-Black district that will be silenced with this hateful gerrymandering. Meanwhile, her other Democratic House colleagues, who were happily soaking in the cheers when they landed back in Texas after leaving the state in protest, signed the "permission slips" and left her and her colleagues who are actually about something to sit there, overnight, in a locked room. None of them thought she, Gene, and Vince were worth standing in solidarity with in the face of hate and oppression. Nope. They signed their "permission slips" and moved on with their day. I'm sure Rep. Nicole had things in her life she wanted to get back to and loved ones she wanted to be with last night, but she understood what her presence means for her constituents. So she was 10 toes down while her colleagues bounced.

Later, you can guarantee her colleagues will act like they respect Rep. Nicole's "bravery" before going right back to inactivity and virtue signalling. And in a week it'll be like none of this ever happened. Texas Dems, Dems in general, will learn nothing and apply nothing to how they operate in the future or how they show up for Black women and Black communities.

Rinse and repeat.

And y'all wonder why Black women are on an indefinite sabbatical from saving y'all.

On Conversations with the Brainwashed Bigoted Masses

So...y'all's president has unveiled the next stage of the plan to make the United States a Christian, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, ableist, autocratic hellscape that criminalizes poverty while increasing said poverty tenfold and making homelessness illegal by declaring a state of emergency in the nation's capital and unleashing the National Guard on a citizenry and city that has seen a dramatic decrease in violent crime and crime in general. And he's doing this with no evidence of any kind of crime escalation that would deem this move necessary, because the United States Supreme Court has ensured that being President has no checks and balances, allowing y'all's president to do what he wants to all of us with no repercussions.

Yet some of y'all are still supporting this man and these decisions because, for some reason, you think he's not launching a pilot program for a nationwide police state where everyone faces a state of constant danger for just existing. Hell, some of y'all have already been increasingly harmed by the decisions y'all's president has made and the impacts they have had on entire communities across the country, including rural communities. Some of y'all have lost jobs, businesses, farms, family members, healthcare options, and basic human rights in the past seven months due to the kazillion hateful executive orders and bills passed by y'all's president and his cronies. Yet some of y'all are still supporting this man and his decisions. Some of y'all have gone as far as to say things like, "I know he didn't mean to hurt me. I know he'll make things better" while he continues making things worse for you. And some of y'all are still out here talkin' about we need to keep the lines of communication open with folx and take care of folx who voted for and support this ongoing harm while being harmed themselves and believing they aren't intentionally being harmed.

With all of this in mind, my question is simple: what conversation is there left for us to have?

I refuse to continue putting energy into fruitless conversations with people brainwashed by their own hatred and bigotry.

I refuse to consort with FAFO people who force us all to find out, even those of us who weren't effin' around and knew what effin' around would do to all of us.

I'm done trying to help people "see the light" when they'd prefer to look directly into the sun and act like their corneas aren't being fried.

It's not worth it, y'all. There's no benefit to continuing a directionless discourse with the folx who are embracing their dictator because they're never going to hear you or believe the facts you present that show them how in danger they truly are.

Reserve your energy for fighting for those who need your help. It's clear who and what we need to fight for - and it ain't a fanbase for a wannabe dictator who are cool with a dictator oppressing us all while believing they'll eventually be deemed special and spared of his wrath.

This Week's Opening Thought: August 11, 2025

This week's opening thought: I understand the issues that people have with HR and their criticisms of HR "professonals." I get it. I work in HR and I have the same issues with the industry, its practices, and many of its practitioners. The issues and criticisms many of y'all have are valid. But I want to add something to the conversation that a lot of people don't recognize:

Some of y'all are a WHOLE DAMN HOT MESS.

BRUH.

I have SEEN and HEARD some things at work, y'all, and I am NOT OK.

At least once a month, I see or hear something that someone has said or done at work that makes me wonder about the future of humanity. I have witnessed some horrible people in action, some who have been so heinous that I wouldn't be surprised if I saw them on a future Dateline episode. I've had the displeasure of investigating some heinous, hateful, exploitative, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, ableist situations and interactions and watching in horror and exasperation as all my work and strong recommendations to remove those people from the workplace get thrown in the garbage like someone mimicking Michael Jordan with a wad of paper. Real talk?

It's scary, frustrating, and leaves the people who've been harmed and those trying to support and defend them feeling disregarded and defeated. And it does nothing but add to the narrative that HR folx don't want to help you.

Look, some HR "professionals" are not in the business of helping you. We can all agree on that. But believe me when I say that some of us do want to help you. We are trying, y'all. TRY. EENG. But we're basically swimming upstream against the current in shark-infested waters while getting knives and rocks thrown at us. If it isn't organizational culture and white supremacy it's labor laws that are structured to be manipulated for loopholes because of how vague they are. We're catchin' it from all angles while trying to support and protect people.

Some HR "professionals" deserve the reputation they have. But sometimes? Sometimes people are raggedy, systems are raggedy, and the solutions are raggedy because they're non-existent or neutered to the point where they do more harm than good due to the places we work and the laws we're governed by.

I'm surprised Lester Holt ain't said some of y'all's names yet.