This Week's Opening Thought: March 31, 2025

This week’s opening thought: It always amuses me when I call people of pallor in or out for their white supremacist nonsense, and they tell me that I’ve “disappointed them” or that they “thought I was different than the others.”

😂

Oh, you sad, silly, naive, easily sunburned child.

You thought my closet of novelty t-shirts and my wealth of Golden Girls, comic books, and pop culture knowledge and references meant I was “one of the good ones” who would “cherish your comfort,” didn’t you?

🤣

Whew, chile! You wild! Stop making me laugh so hard! You gon’ make me spill my pampelmousse LaCroix!

Y’all really be out here thinking there’s only two kinds of Black people: the ones that make you feel like you’re safe from discomfort or accountability and every other Black person.

Sheesh.

Don't let the Breakfast at Tiffany’s tees and my love for Bea Arthur and Wonder Woman fool you. I am still Black. Blackity-BLACK-BLACK-BLACK. And I’m a Black man from Detroit, dude. And not one of them suburbs outside of Detroit that loves to claim the name - I’m talkin’ about DETROIT Detroit. I am so not the one.

Just because I’m a chill-ass magical f—-g unicorn with an eclectic palate and splendid personality doesn’t mean I’m a “safe” Black person for people of pallor to be toxic around. You can and will get impaled with my horn if and when you spout off with some of that white supremacist nonsense that shows your unwillingness to evolve, learn, grow, and stop harming Black bodies.

And I’m not the only one ready to check you.

The overwhelming majority of Black people don’t fit into your “safety” criteria or your stereotype box. We can like and enjoy what you consider “white hobbies and interests” and still be Black as hell and not interested in your comfort. And we do it all with style and seasoning.

“I’m disappointed?”

😂

“I thought you were different?”

🤣

That white supremacy be havin’ y’all out here judging every Black book by its cover, huh? Better quit doing that before you catch some figurative or literal hands!

[Image description: A selfie-style picture of Pharoah going on a walk in his neighborhood. He is wearing pink headphones and a Breakfast at Tiffany’s t-shirt. He smirks at the viewer while holding the two-finger salute with his left hand.]

Image description: A selfie-style picture of Pharoah going on a walk in his neighborhood. He is wearing pink headphones and a Breakfast at Tiffany’s t-shirt. He smirks at the viewer while holding the two-finger salute with his left hand.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 11, 2025

This week's opening thought: We’re not even two months into the year of someone’s lord 2025, and I am already tired of dealing with and witnessing pallor-based mediocrity. Just exhausted. I need me two naps right now, y’all, back to back. And I’d still need two more.

I was already tired of watching mediocre men of pallor try to destroy us all, including the men of pallor they deem more mediocre than themselves, only for pallor apologists to come crawling out of the woodwork to defend them. But these past few weeks have got me bone tired.

I was already tired of pallor-based mediocrity being the vocal “law of the land,” leading to hate and harm for millions of people because mediocre people of pallor are scared of their own mortality and the realization that the world is ready to evolve past them and the systems they built. But right now, I’m deep in my body tired.

And I’m absolutely exhausted with witnessing the sheer audacity and caucasity of this new push from mediocre men of pallor and their apologists to cry wolf and scream autism whenever they’re held accountable for their hateful words and actions, diminishing and belittling the complexities of those on the spectrum to try and mask how horribly mediocre, weak, and feebly dangerous to everyone they are.

The United States was built on the fragility of pallor and pallor politics designed to try and divide, oppress, and neuter every single person on its stolen land through mediocrity. And I’ll be damned if that mediocrity so many of y’all yearned for to “make America great again” ain’t draining me right now.

I know I’m not the only one.

Then y’all have the audacity and caucasity to get mad at Black people, Black women, and question why we’re deciding to sit this one out.

We tired, foo. Of you and all of this.

Save yourselves. We restin’ up for the next battle to save OURSELVES.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 3, 2025

Image description: a montage of Dorothy from "The Golden Girls" looking on with disappointment and derision. The montage is captioned, "People of pallor: 'I didn't vote for him.' The look on my face, knowing how many people of pallor voted for this mess, making the statement 'I didn't vote for him' invalid."

This week's opening thought: Since y'all's president started his second term, I've received many direct messages and comments on my post from people of pallor who want me to know they didn't vote for this horrible man, his cronies, and the complete dismantling of the already raggedy systems of democracy in the United States. My response to this?

Girl, bye.

60% of cis males of pallor and 53% of cis women of pallor voted for y'all's president and his "agenda." I've shared those numbers multiple times in the past few weeks. I'm going to continue making sure these numbers are front and center. Why?

Because if you're a person of pallor, even if you didn't vote for this, you know someone who did.

Real talk? The odds of y'all [people of pallor] having a fellow person of pallor in your social circles who voted for all of this turmoil are supremely high. You've got an uncle, cousin, or in-law of pallor who voted for this. You have a close friend or neighbor of pallor who you always kick it with who voted for this. Some of y'all have spouses of pallor who you know voted for this.

And I don't see y'all checkin' none of them.

But y'all be quick to hop on a Black woman's social media feed and try to check them, or make sure to say "not it" when a Black person holds y'all collectively accountable for this mess. Speaks volumes.

Just admit, y'all don't like holding each other accountable or taking responsibility for the ongoing harm your people have done for centuries. Our current situation? This isn't new. It might seem "new," but it's a rinse and repeat of white supremacy.

You've done it to melanated countries and communities for centuries. Hell, y'all have done this to each other for centuries. It's what y'all do the moment your people's perceived "superiority"/power over everyone and everything has holes poked in its paper-thin veneer.

Your saying, "I didn't vote for him," does not outweigh the fact that more than half of your people who exercised their right to vote submitted their ballots for...ALL of this. Your people are overwhelmingly represented in this life-altering harm.

You don't get a cookie or a gold star for assuring us that you didn't vote for this.

But you do get a side-eye.

Girl, bye.

Go check yourself and your people.

[Image description: a montage of Dorothy from "The Golden Girls" looking on with disappointment and derision. The montage is captioned, "People of pallor: 'I didn't vote for him.' The look on my face, knowing how many people of pallor voted for this mess, making the statement 'I didn't vote for him' invalid."]

This Week's Opening Thought: January 13, 2025

This week's opening thought: I would never say that I’m an expert on everything and anything Black because being Black is not monolithic, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that collectively, Black people are bone tired of people of pallor being so visibly shocked that so many people of pallor traffic in hate, bigotry, white supremacy, white violence, and misogynoir. We’re seven days away from likely a decade of struggles and strife that people of pallor overwhelmingly voted for a few months ago, and yet we’re still seeing shocked faces and “hot takes” of pallor.

Bruh.

When y’all bust out the shocked and dismayed faces, vocal tones, and body language theatrics? It feels performative and disingenuous because it often IS performative and disingenuous. And when it isn’t disingenuous? It’s a clear signal of your complacency and complicity in the harm of melanated communities, Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples, and Black women and femmes. It’s a clear message to Black folx that y’all are choosing to be misinformed and uninformed to maintain your comfort. And it clearly indicates that you think we’re naive or fearful of calling you in or out on your nonsense and leaving you to pick your jaws up off the floor. However, you still want Black folx to think you care so you can maintain fraudulent relationships with us for your egos and “I’m a good person” identities, so you keep trying this weak mess because if just one of us coddles you, you'll get to believe your own ignorant tomfoolery.

Pallor, please.

Black folx ain't got time for that. Never did, never will.

I would tell y’all to do better and examine why this is your default response to the ongoing reality happening all around you (often at your hands), but y'all are too busy engaging in soap opera-level acting and intentional short-term memory loss.

This Week's Opening Thought: December 30, 2024

This week’s opening thought: As I walk away from my current day job and onto better things, I find myself entertained by how often Black folx, Black women, will leave a workplace after being overworked, unappreciated, and treated like less-than-crap for years while every person of pallor and pallor sympathizer who contributed to their harm come to the realization that those Black folx were the glue holding it all together.

Y'all treat us like refuse, and we still show up and show out.

Many of you probably thought that our work ethic and the use of our multi-faceted skillsets symbolized our allegiance to your organization. Nah, son.

That's our allegiance to ourselves.

What do we look like throwing our careers and dreams away because you think white supremacy, misogynoir, and anti-Blackness are imaginary friends?

Believe me when I say we know our value. We know it deep in our souls, straight from our ancestors. We also know you're using and viewing us differently than the mediocre people of pallor and yes-men you surround us with and make us report to.

So we use you while viewing you as what you are: abusers, users, racists, white supremacists.

We learn, grow, and evolve on your dime. Then, we use you as a launching pad to bigger and better things. And we walk away without guilt, knowing you'll learn nothing from our exchange. Of course you'll posit yourself as the victim, like somehow us leaving wrongs you. You lack the intangible humanity threads needed to acknowledge how your hate and ignorance earned your house of cards tumbling into chaos. You won’t see how the dominoes always fall: when one leaves it generates a movement of hope. You’ll begin losing the melanin that drives your organization forward. You’ll start to freak out when the people of pallor and pallor sympathizers you lauded for bending the knee are incapable of stepping up with the high levels of energy and knowledge that just walked out your front door. And you’ll blame everyone and everything but yourselves.

Que sera.

You didn’t “believe in DEI” anyway. You’ll “survive.”

Better go buy some Elmer’s, son.