This Week's Opening Thought: January 8, 2024

Image description: A picture of a Nintendo Wii video game console jutting from the top of a cardboard box. The box has the words "this together" scrawled on one panel in black marker. The image is preceded by the phrase, "My brain when people of pallor in leadership roles are like, "We are in this together!"

This week's opening thought for people of pallor in leadership roles: No, we are not "in this together." No matter what you say or how you say it, you will not sway me into believing that when it comes to equity, active anti-racism, anti-oppression, and dismantling white supremacy, we are "in this together." We cannot be "in this together" because we do not share the same stakes and potential consequences while "in this."

Your life isn't at stake. Your livelihood and career aren't at stake. Your safety on multiple levels is not at stake. And all that is something that so many "well-meaning" un-melanated professionals with power and positionality in organizations don't want to digest and understand.

You can't be my ally, accomplice, homey, advocate, friend, acquaintance, or nothing without being willing to legitimately understand and acknowledge that we are "in this together" while on two separate train tracks of your ancestor's creation going in the same direction. Most of y'all prefer the tracks to be running adjacent to one another because y'all ain't ready to build a track connector to come over to our track and learn, unlearn, and unpack your indoctrination into white supremacist ideology. You want to be able to occasionally look over from your train car to watch the trauma unfold, then pull your shade down and continue enjoying the ride. You only want to know of our pain enough to say that you know on the most surface levels.

Hit me up when you're ready and willing to be "in this together" beyond a sentence that sounds nice coming out of your mouth that strokes your indoctrination into the good/bad binary.

Until you do right by me, may you suck at Mario Kart 'til infinity and beyond.

[Image description: A picture of a Nintendo Wii video game console jutting from the top of a cardboard box. The box has the words "this together" scrawled on one panel in black marker. The image is preceded by the phrase, "My brain when people of pallor in leadership roles are like, "We are in this together!"]