On Drivers, Passengers, and Road Trips

When you're in a position where you have privilege, power, positionality, or some combination of the three, you are more than likely the driver—the driver of your destiny, your learning, your unlearning, and your personal development and growth, which means your privilege allows you to actively and passively drive things for others who aren't as centrally positioned. But one thing most people seem to neglect thinking about is that when you have so much power as the driver, you need to recognize that half the time, you think you should be driving but would be better off as a passenger.

Being a good passenger is equally as crucial as being a conscientious driver.

Evolving as a person is more about how you engage and absorb information, insights, and uncomfortable truths about yourself and the world around you than it is about being in control of everything. As a passenger, I've learned and unlearned many things. By being humble enough to let someone else take the wheel and giving them an equal share of my power, privilege, and positionality, I have grappled with my discomfort, ignorance, and the hurdles to my growth and development. And I honored those drivers in those moments by paying them back for their time and energy, amplifying their voices, and sharing my own time, energy, and resources to let them be passengers when they wanted to be. If we're all claiming to be on the same road and heading to the same destination, we should be taking shifts as the driver and passenger to give everyone on the trip the chance to be heard, seen, supported, elevated, and to rest, especially those with less privilege, power, and positionality.

That's one of the best road trips, y'all.

That's the road trip to liberation for all.

This Week's Opening Thought: February 20, 2023

This week’s opening thought: There is nothing wrong with side-eying advice given to you by people who lack an understanding of your culture and the impacts of heteronormative white supremacist ideology while exhibiting a paper-thin knowledge of the historical context of the trauma inflicted on your people or community.

White “professionals” call themselves giving me advice all the time yet lash out whenever I offer them some counter-advice about addressing how their privilege, white privilege, and perspectives cultivated through a whiteness lens shape the advice they give. Every time it happens, I shake my head and keep it movin’. Real talk? They’ve just made my not listening to anything they say to “advise” me on how to live my life that much easier.

Your advice lacks validity if you can’t acknowledge how your advice might not work for everyone’s circumstances or how your advice could ignite or exacerbate trauma for folx from some communities.

What works for a white man rarely works for a Black woman.

What works for a queer-identifying white person usually doesn’t work for a queer-identifying person from a Global Majority community.

What works for a non-disabled person comes with many hurdles for someone with a disability.

If you’re out here trying to give advice but can’t take in how your power and positionality permeate your advice? You’re Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz.

And no one should want to be seen in the same light as Phil or Mehmet.

This Week's Opening Thought: September 26, 2022

This week’s opening thought: Boston Celtics head coach Ime Udoka is in the news for having a consensual relationship with a cis female staff member of the Boston Celtics organization. The fallout of this abuse of power has dominated segments of the news cycle for days. And yes, before anyone decides to go in on me, this situation is an abuse of power. We’re not going to debate that. And while I have a fundamental problem with people in power having relationships with employees in their organizations who have less power and stature within said organizations, there’s one thing that stood out for me in all the news coverage of Udoka’s indiscretions:

NFL football legend Brett Favre helped a group of white folx commit large-scale welfare fraud, and no one is talking about it.

A rich white cis male who made his money in a heteronormative sport is being investigated for blatant large-scale welfare fraud, and the press and the sports media have barely discussed it.

It’s not even second-page news at this point.

As the situation with Ime Udoka unfolds, its fallout should be the point of discussion around more significant conversations regarding abuses of power and control in our workplaces. But to act like Brett Favre and a group of white people who saw a system to exploit shouldn’t also be a discussion we should be having parallel to the Udoka conversation is surreal.

If we’re talking about abuses of power and privilege, we need to be talking about all of the abuses of power and privilege, not just the ones with melanated folx in the forefront as public figures.

P.S.: Impoverished Black folx in Mississippi are also at the forefront as public figures in the large-scale welfare fraud that Favre and his homies perpetrated. This fraud harms Black communities. The news cycles want to act like they aren’t at the forefront and that their harm isn’t worth discussing. If you learn one thing today, understand that whiteness will always use melanin to harm others, whether as full-on spectacles or bodies to sweep under the rug.