Monday's Opening Thought: June 28, 2021

This week’s opening thought: I understand that many white people and people of color with privilege are somewhat new to the concept of white supremacy and the centuries of harm it is responsible for. Many of you don’t know what to say or where to start and are scared of saying or doing the wrong things. You reach out to me via private message or want to ask for my “free advice” after I’ve led a training. Well, I felt that it was time to let y’all in on a little secret:

None of that discomfort or fear you’re feeling means that you’re obligated to the sympathy, coddling or extra energy you think me or any other marginalized person of color should offer you to help you “learn” and “feel better.”

Yeah, some of y’all have a “journey” ahead of you. A long lifelong “journey.” That doesn’t mean I have to get in the wagon with you and steer the damn thing as you try not to die from dysentery on the Oregon Trail of your anti-racism and white supremacy.

Your self-work is yours to dive into. You’re not owed the free labor and energy of historically marginalized folx to teach you. It’s not marginalized people of color’s job to teach you and mold you into a caricature of an accomplice without receiving adequate and equitable compensation. An occasional chat is one thing but asking me out for coffee just to dump all of your emotional dysregulations in my lap for 60 minutes? Nah. I’m tight.

Google and libraries and documentaries and podcasts and therapy exist. Please build your own learning and self-growth combo meal that doesn’t include a side of marginalized people of color carrying your emotional and mental load.

Monday's Opening Thought: June 21, 2021

This week’s opening thought: I’m deciding to ignore the existence of the word “diversity” for the rest of my life. I’m adding it to my personal banishment list along with such words as “professional” and such phrases as “I don’t see color.” Why? Because our society has devalued the word and even the concept of “diversity” to the point where it’s a homogenized white-centered buzzword that only crops up when overwhelmingly white companies and communities get uncomfortable with their optics.

The truth is that the watered-down “diversity” conversations that take place in our workplaces and communities are used to replace having to do the hard, raw, uncomfortable work of building equitable and inclusive workplaces and communities. I’ve worked for companies where people has said such wonderful things about “diversity” as, “We need to hire some Black people because our donors keep asking us why we’re so white” and “We hired some Asians last year so I think we’re good with that for now.” I’ve been a part of conversations in the Portland metro area where people has said that they want the “right kind of diversity” in their neighborhoods and that certain marginalized groups “impact the appeal of our neighborhoods and resale values of our homes.” Whiteness wants diversity on its own white supremacist terms, not caring that this is not how the concept of diversity works. They just want the optics.

I refuse to be a part of any white community or institution’s optics.

Until y’all want to talk about building equitable and inclusive spaces that don’t solely exist just so white people can feel good about themselves we have nothing to talk about regarding “diversity.”

Consider this an Old Yeller moment.

Monday's Opening Thought: June 14, 2021

This week’s opening thought, for white people and people of color with power and privilege: If you do or say something racist and harmful to a Black, Brown, or Indigenous person, a person of color, they do not owe you the opportunity to explain why you did or said what you did or said. That’s not how this works. What you’re exhibiting are abuser mannerisms and behaviors. The harmed party does not owe you the space to explain away your harmful actions or rhetoric.

Understand that. Digest that. Your actions are your cross to bear and not the burden of those you harm. You will need to atone for your words and actions on your time and not off of the backs of those you’ve harmed.

And guess what? You lashing out at the person you’ve harmed because they won’t give you the opportunity to “explain it away?” Yeah, that’s abuser behavior too. Just sayin’.

Monday's Opening Thought: June 7, 2021

This week’s opening thought: If you are white and you’re against Critical Race Theory being taught in schools but have never actually read any credible CRT essays and the only things you “know” about CRT you read on a Twitter or Facebook thread or heard from a conservative politician or talking head? Congratulations!

You are your white ancestors’/colonizers’ wildest white supremacist dream.

Embrace who you are the way your ancestors openly embraced their hate and views around melanated people existing. Don’t be shy! You might as well go all in and embody the beliefs and support the oppressive states and laws that CRT was created to analyze and educate people on.

And if you’re Black or a person of color and you’re against Critical Race Theory being taught in schools but have never actually read any credible CRT essays and the only things you “know” about CRT you read on a Twitter or Facebook thread or heard from a conservative politician or talking head?

You’re choosing lies and talking points over educating yourself against being some white ancestor’s/colonizer’s dream. That’s a dangerous soapbox to stand on. And it’s a perilous hill to die on.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 31, 2021

This week’s opening thought: The discussions around “getting back to normal” have been ramping up lately. In the workplace, on the news, from the lips of the President of the United States. So many people just want to “go back to normal,” to roam free and do whatever they want with no restrictions. What some folx still refuse to acknowledge is that what they want is a particular narcissistic kind of “normalcy.” They refuse to see other people’s “normal.” “Normal” for way too many people - Black people, Brown people, Indigenous communities, AAPI communities, people with disabilities, queer communities, trans folx - is dangerous on multiple fronts. It’s a world of gaslighting and liabilities that many of us are not looking forward to diving back into.

You want “normal?” Well, let me share with you a piece of my “normal” that I wasn’t looking forward to engaging with again as we collectively are forced to segue back into “normalcy”: my “normal” experience shopping for groceries.

As I shopped this past weekend for groceries for the week it was the first time in 15 months where I found myself facing all of my pre-pandemic woes around shopping:

-White people practically pushing past me and damn near through me to get to something on a shelf when I’m not obstructing their ability to grab items in any way.

-White women invading my personal space, often going under my arms while I’m grabbing items from high shelves or trapping themselves between me and a shelf.

-White people taking up entire aisles with their carts, oblivious to my existence or need to get down an aisle.

-White people acting like me saying “excuse me” to move past them obstructing movement is egregious behavior and looking at me as such.

-Security guards following me around sections of the store.

-Self-checkout cashiers watching me like a hawk, counting my scans to see if I’m ringing up all 10 yogurts in my cart and wanting to look in my cart.

I haven’t had to deal with most of these things, especially not all in one trip, for over a year. But we’re “getting back to normal” so here we are, back to oscillating between feeling like a criminal, invisible, and a person people view as an inconvenience on a grocery run. “Normal” represents oppression for me, and not just in the supermarket. And I know I’m not alone. I’m not the only one viewing “normal” as a return to being disregarded, ignored, harmed, killed on a broader scale.

I’ll take a few more months of “not normal” please and thank you.