This Week's Opening Thought: November 18, 2024

This week's opening thought: Cowardly masked neo-nazis marched through Columbus, Ohio, this past Saturday, fully armed while spewing hateful rhetoric via megaphones and swinging swastika-adorned flags. This hate march came a week after another group of masked individuals were seen waving similar nazi flags outside a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" in Howell, Michigan. In both cases, police were called by witnesses and citizens to intervene, but no charges were filed because, evidently, these incidents are not considered hate crimes.

To some of you - *cough* privileged people of pallor and those seeking approval from people of pallor *cough* - this may seem tame. You probably don't think of these kinds of things as hate crimes. But, to paraphrase Pepperidge Farms, most of the melanated folx in your community, workplace, and life, remember that this is how the hate train starts: little gestures to test the waters before the full-on wave of hate crimes erupts across the country.

Many of the melanated know what's on the horizon after an election that has emboldened hateful people of pallor to feel completely justified in their actions and immune to consequences. Their elected figurehead has made it clear time and again that he does not care about racism, hate crimes, and neo-nazi terrorism. Hell, their elected figurehead is planning to mobilize the military and declare a "state of emergency" on immigrants and naturalized citizens on his first day in office. And note that their elected figurehead ain't talkin' about immigrants of pallor.

It's clear where we are at and what's to come. We've been here before.

"It's just a flag."

"It's just words."

Right. Sure thing, buddy.

"It's just an election. We'll be OK. He won't do what he said he's going to do."

Yeah...no. Same energy as the other two statements.

Miss me with all of that, and KEEP missing me.

For many of us, we've been there, done that, and ain't trying to hear that this isn't the springboard for four-plus years of unrelenting hatred.

We're just getting ourselves ready to protect and defend ourselves, our communities, and our mental, physical, and emotional health from the likes of you and yours because it's either fight or perish.

And we don't perish easily.

On Cats, Dogs, Lies, and Hate

I watched a man who believes he should be President again, and who should've never been President in the first place, angrily shout that Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Ohio and that a town in Colorado is overrun and controlled by "terrorist gangs" during a presidential debate last night.

These are, of course, xenophobic and racist dog whistles steeped in fear-mongering and stereotypes, but the danger these kinds of comments pose to Black and Brown folx, to immigrants, cannot be stressed enough.

What that caricature of a man did last night is a white supremacist control tactic as old as time that has harmed generations of melanated folx and immigrants in Western society. The problem is that here we are, in the year of someone's lord, 2024, watching a nationally televised event that received international coverage with a man of pallor whose only skill in life is generating fear to gain power and who has millions of followers ready to eat it up like it's the gospel who truly believe immigrants and melanated folx are a clear and present danger to their families, communities, and evidently, pets when they are the least likely sections of the citizenry to commit crimes and less likely to commit violent crimes.

But who needs facts when you can vilify melanated folx? Your grandpappy did it, and your pappy did it, so why not you too?

These hateful "fables" don't pass the sniff test.

But nothing has to pass the sniff test when your race has been collectively raised and bred for generations to believe that anyone who has melanin in their skin is a threat to "white democracy."

On Having Concepts of A Plan

Only a privileged man of pallor can say, "I have concepts of a plan" around a hot-button issue that impacts millions of people while interviewing for the most challenging job in the country that he's already proven to be ineffective in and still have millions of followers who bow to him like he's the next coming.

Do you think I can I go to work tomorrow and tell my leaders that I have the concept of a plan when they ask me about my work progress on a project they've been waiting on for weeks, and they will accept that as a feasible answer?

Do you think I can answer a question at a job interview with "I have the concepts of a plan" and be seen as a serious and competent candidate?

Bruh.

The bar is so low for people of pallor in Western culture. Especially men of pallor.

These are y'all's kings?

It would be funny if it wasn't at the heart of a centuries-long threat to democracy and the ongoing health and safety of melanated communities.

On Defense, Defensiveness, and the White Supremacy Defense Handbook

I will never be shocked at how often people of pallor jump in to defend other people of pallor for doing and saying hateful, harmful, racist, and oppressive things. At work, on social media, in public - most people of pallor never fail to "stand in solidarity" with other people of pallor, even after witnessing their harmful words and actions firsthand.

That's page 76 of the white supremacy defense handbook, right?

I will never be shocked that the defenders of pallor constantly ask those whom people of pallor harm to "assume positive intent" whenever they harm us, even if there isn't one crumb of positive intent one could discern from their actions.

If memory serves me correctly, that's chapter 5: the good/bad binary as a tool of oppression.

I will never be shocked that people of pallor still react to those they harm not buying the "positive intent" sales pitch by referring to chapter 8 of the white supremacy defense handbook in which those harmed by white supremacy are supposed to constantly be ready to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that harm has occurred, even after people of pallor witness the harm with their own eyes.

I will also never be shocked when people of pallor and their defenders send me and people like me private messages or want to push for a conversation away from witnesses to plead their case and drain the batteries of those they have harmed or watched get harmed by expecting those they've harmed to educate them when they do not want to be educated—they want to be “proven right” or feel justified in their actions.

I think that's also chapter 8, but I could have an old copy of the book.

What's that, you say? There are no new editions? And that y'all been rockin' with the same handbook for 100+ years?

But of course.

I'm not even shocked.

This Week's Opening Thought: August 12, 2024

This week's opening thought: just because you can cook doesn't mean you should be passin’ out plates to everyone.

Everyone doesn't deserve a plate.

Everyone hasn't earned a plate.

Proximity does not make getting a plate a given. Neither does blood relation or history. Real talk? Those things often make it very clear who has and has not earned a plate.

You get to determine who gets fed from your well of knowledge, experience, and empathy in all areas of your life, not the other way around. You get to decide who deserves to be nourished and who doesn't nourish you. Don't let any person or workplace tell you otherwise.

Stop letting people and workplaces invite themselves to dinner.

They better go warm up a Hot Pocket.