"28 Days of Anti-Racism"

Image description: an LED marquee display for the Lake Worth Beach City Hall. The left side of the marquee says, "Black History Month, February 1-28." The right side of the sign shows two hands shaking, with what one would presume is a Black hand looking garbled and discolored. Around the handshake are the words "28 Days of Anti-Racism."

"28 Days of Anti-Racism."

😳

March 1 is gonna be a damn mess in Lake Worth Beach, huh? White folx just unleashin' all the racism they've been bottling up for 28 days, chompin' at the bit to say the N-word out loud again!

Face, meet palm.

Oh, white people. Y'all try so hard sometimes and want so much credit for trying so hard, yet y'all miss the mark so often.

So many of us [melanated folx] give y'all leeway as much as we can, and we teach y'all for free so often, but then y'all put up signs like this. And y'all be so proud of these signs, too. Then you're so crushed when we're like, "No. Just no." Then you want to flip it on us, lash out at us and throw a fit over us, "making you feel like you're never going to get it right" instead of listening to us when we teach you and accepting that you'll never be perfect, but you can at least keep trying. But you've tried enough, right? We should accept that you've tried enough!

So we [melanated folx] inhale, exhale, and rinse and repeat with y'all for a while until we realize y'all seem to learn less and less the more we teach and share of ourselves to help you. So our willingness to keep teaching you diminishes over time. Y'all see this, and then y'all blame us for not wanting to teach you as the reason for your ineptitude and lack of empathy instead of looking inside and asking yourself what the hell you did or keep doing where melanated folx don't want to deal with you.

This is why y'all end up with marquees with messages like "28 Days of Anti-Racism."

White supremacy is the worst homage to Groundhog Day ever.

[Image description: an LED marquee display for the Lake Worth Beach City Hall. The left side of the marquee says, "Black History Month, February 1-28." The right side of the sign shows two hands shaking, with what one would presume is a Black hand looking garbled and discolored. Around the handshake are the words "28 Days of Anti-Racism."]

Monday's Opening Thought: February 1, 2021

Monday's opening thought, for Black folx only: It's Black History Month. Take each of this month's 28 days to be proud of who you are and where we're going. I know, this being Black in the United States thing ain't easy. It's often downright exhausting and it always has an element of danger to it. Blackness can sometimes feel like a pendulum. But I want y'all to look at the photos below. Yes, these are all pictures of struggle. But they are also pictures of pride, of a willingness to fight for freedom even when we're denied it. These are pictures of an unwillingness to let hate dim our internal lights.

No matter what, Black folx, we are a proud people. We will always fight for those that come after us and for those we walk alongside every day. We will fight even when we don't directly benefit because we know that equity and equality ain't the same thing. That is what being Black is. And that is something to be proud of every day, not just during the shortest month of the year.

Take the energy of our ancestors in this struggle and keep on pushing for better from your country, your neighbors, your workplaces. But make that push happen while you take care of yourself and your families and communities. Center your self-care, whatever that may be. Live for joy and hope and dreams. Make this Black History Month your new launchpad for taking care of yourself so you can take care of others. Our ancestors, our elders, would want that.

We all we got. Let's make sure we got each other and ourselves.