Monday's Opening Thought: June 6, 2022

This week’s opening thought: There is an Amazon package on my front porch. It’s not my package; it was delivered to the wrong address. The porch that this package should’ve been delivered to is probably five or six doors down from my house.

I am not dropping that package off by myself.

I have never had a conversation with this neighbor, but I know they are white. They likely don’t know who I am, as I tend to keep to myself. I am in no mood to try to drop something off at some white person’s house, only for them to accuse me of trying to take their package from their porch.

I don’t need that trouble.

Is dropping this package off at the correct address the right thing to do? Of course. But I’m a big Black man in an overwhelmingly white city where many of my neighbors look at me like I haven’t lived in my home for nine years.

I don’t need that trouble.

Yesterday, I was walking into my local supermarket. A white woman was walking in ahead of me. Because I have been on the receiving end of white women acting like a Black person being close to them is a “safety issue,” I maintained a few paces between us. When I entered the store, I saw this white woman struggling to pull a cart out of the cart storage area. I could see that the cart behind it had been shoved in at an angle, making dislodging the carts a problematic endeavor. I stepped forward, smiling with my eyes to maintain friendliness (I was wearing a mask), and pulled the carts apart for her. She thanked me for my help and then proceeded to hand me a gallon of milk that someone had left in the cart. She looked at me and said, “Someone left this behind. You can put this back.”

She thought I worked at the supermarket.

At the time, I was wearing a Fist of the North Star t-shirt, sweatpants, and sneakers, yet she legitimately thought I worked at the supermarket.

Containing my frustration regarding this microaggression, I sternly replied, “I don’t work here.” Her response? She stammered before saying, “Oh, I thought you worked here. You were so nice.”

The layers of anti-Blackness, y’all. The layers.

At that moment, I wanted to drag her ass for saying to me that she thinks Black people are mean unless we’re being nice to her, then we’re “the help.” But I knew that it would be her word against mine and I would ultimately be facing white rage if I did that.

I don’t need that trouble.

Being a “good person” means nothing when anti-Blackness ensures that you’re typecast as a dangerous criminal or only considered “good” when you’re subservient to whiteness. I get up every day, aiming to be a decent person. It’s who I am, a person who wants to help others. But I do so while factoring in that I am a big Black man in an overwhelmingly white city where people see my skin tone before anything else. And sometimes?

Sometimes I don’t need that trouble.

I know I’m not the only one.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 30, 2022

This week’s opening thought: Wells Fargo was recently outed by current and former employees for conducting fake job interviews with candidates of color and female and femme-identifying candidates to make their diversity hiring numbers look good on paper.

Guess who has had this done to them by Wells Fargo the most.

If you guessed Black women and female/femme-identifying candidates, please feel free to fill in that space on your Corporate White Supremacy bingo card!

If you’re a white person or non-Black person of color reading this, and you’re shocked that a large national banking corporation would approach recruiting in this manner, I’m going to need you to sit down for a spell and assess where your shock is coming from. And I’m going to need you to do that on your own, away from Black folx and far away from any Black women you know. You have a great deal of white supremacist ideology unpacking you need to do, and Black people, Black women, do not need to be around you while you do the work.

The truth is, Wells Fargo isn’t the only company with hiring practices that are this harmful and exclusionary to Black women. Companies across the United States have approached sourcing and recruiting candidates of color, Black women, with these kinds of tactics for decades. Wells Fargo isn’t alone in stringing candidates of color along throughout the recruiting process for the sake of optics.

This is why diversity hiring initiatives stink.

“Diversity” only matters to most companies when it comes to how the annual hiring numbers look on paper for people of color, Black folx, and Black women hired in the last fiscal year. Companies want the optical illusion of having a diverse workforce without doing the hard work of evolving their workplace culture and maintaining spaces for people of color, Black people, and Black women to grow and thrive. Most companies don’t care if the patriarchal, oppressive, white supremacist workplace culture they’re so reluctant to address runs people of color away and harms Black folx and Black women. And when Black people leave? They blame it on “culture fit” and not being able to find enough “qualified Black candidates.”

Black people have been telling y’all about these issues for years. Black folx, Black women, have known this is part of companies keeping up appearances for decades and have told y’all this repeatedly. It’s easier for y’all to believe an implausible narrative that somehow all Black people you hire are “the problem” than to examine that your company is racist, sexist, and toxic for non-white people. It’s easier for whiteness to blame the oppressed than the oppressor.

If Wells Fargo is doing this to Black women, what makes you think your company isn’t doing this too? Like right now? And what makes you think they’ll change if you don’t speak up and call out these actions and push for change and accountability, white “allies?”

I guess you’d rather believe in the implausible.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 23, 2022

Image description: Black pro wrestling legend Booker T watching white pro wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair hugging and having a great time at a wrestling event. Booker T has a disgusted look on his face. Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan hugging is captioned with the words “White people wishing each other a happy Juneteenth while harming Black people every day.” Booker T is captioned with the word “Me.”

This week's opening thought: When Juneteenth became a federal bank holiday in 2021, there were many Black folx who were happy. Many Black people feel that making Juneteenth a national bank holiday was a step in the right direction from a race relations perspective. They felt that by acknowledging the Black experience in this way that more U.S. Americans, more white U.S. Americans, would recognize how hard Black people in the United States have fought to get to this place in time.

No tea, no shade, but y'all should've known better than that. We're talking about white U.S. Americans here.

Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was never about learning, reflection, or supporting Black communities for white people. Juneteenth is a bank holiday because the white people who make decisions in this country wanted to feel good about themselves after the murder of George Floyd. Juneteenth, in their eyes, was the low-hanging fruit they needed to "make it right." So they swiftly signed it into law.

And in doing so, they swiftly opened the door for white people to make more money off of Black bodies while continuing the disrespect of Black people in the United States.

Here we are, in the year of somebody's lord, 2022, and Walmart is flush with Juneteenth party decorations, party favors, bingo cards, and "special edition" ice cream flavors. None of these items are made by Black people, of course. White people have put together whites-only Juneteenth parties at swank venues and country clubs and have gotten angry when called out about it. Major publications have been writing how-to guides for white people for two years now, instructing white folx how they should celebrate Juneteenth. These articles are tone-deaf and white-centered, but no one reading this should be surprised. They map out how white people can be performative allies and pat themselves on the back for Juneteenth. White companies are having Juneteenth parties in the workplace. The same companies that complain about "not being enough qualified Black candidates" are subjecting the 10 Black employees on their payroll to a "party" space with their white co-workers. If you're Black, you find yourself in a "party space" with the same white co-workers who hand out microaggressions like Juneteenth party favors every day "celebrating" the enslavement of your ancestors with red velvet cake and a Black speaker hired to "teach" about Black lives.

Real talk?

Juneteenth ain't for you, white people. It's not for you. It's not for you to enjoy. It's not for you to make a profit. Stop it.

Your people have profited from Black bodies for long enough. You don't need another opportunity to do so.

Only white people are callous enough to celebrate lying to Black bodies about the end of their forced enslavement after enslaving them, sexually assaulting them, and traumatizing them for 400+ years. Only white people are callous enough to make money off of the enslavement of Black people at the hands of white people hundreds of years after kidnapping and enslaving Black people.

Y'all really out here making your enslavement of Black bodies a federal day off for white people? Are y'all really making ice cream and party décor and t-shirts to sell to Black people and other white people with none of the funds going to Black communities? Y'all are seriously about two years away from Juneteenth sales at furniture stores, and it's harmful and tasteless.

SIGH.

I'm not going to give you tips or advice about how you should "celebrate" Juneteenth, white people. I'm not going to provide you with book or documentary recommendations. Nah, nix that. I've got one tip for you.

Just don't.

It ain't your emancipation.

You don't get to "celebrate" Black enslavement while calling the police on your Black neighbor or teaching your children "not to see color." You don't get to "celebrate" Black enslavement while treating Black women in the workplace like Juneteenth party favors: fun for a few moments but easily discarded and disregarded.

Juneteenth ain't for you. It ain't your emancipation.

Just leave Black people alone on June 19, white people. Let us celebrate in our way while we continue healing from the ongoing trauma you create.

God, I just had an image of a special edition Juneteenth strawberry Kool-Aid pop into my head.

If y'all do that, I'm leaving the country.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 9, 2022

This week’s opening thought: Please take moments to disconnect from the weight of the world around us and focus on your mental, physical, and emotional health and joy.

I know the world is scary and dangerous. It’s easy for the things happening around us to permeate every part of our lives. Many of us are in a seemingly never-ending fight for our rights and autonomy against hateful people wielding what they call their religious convictions to harm. For many of us, our lives and our loved ones are at the whim of politicians and hate groups with no consequences or checks and balances for those causing harm. Depression and anxiety are real, and it is understandable if you’re struggling to stay afloat as the world burns. But you deserve to have time where you can disconnect and center on the things and people that bring you joy and energy. Don’t tether every waking moment of your day to news feeds. Yes, we need to fight and keep fighting, but you aren’t going to be fighting anything but health concerns if you don’t stop, breathe, and take care of yourself and your people.

Embrace joy.

Embrace you.

Embrace getting the support you need to center your mental, physical, and emotional health.

Sadly, this sh—we’re facing isn’t going anywhere. There’s a whole lot of fight ahead. I want you to be here so we can win these fights together.

Your people and those you fight for love you and want you to be here.

It's OK to take an afternoon, a morning, a day off. You deserve it. We all do.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 2, 2022

Image description: An image from "The Bachelor." A white man, facing away from the viewer while wearing a Black suit, is handing a rose to a white woman in a black and white-striped evening gown.

This week's opening thought: There's a swath of white adult "professionals" out here dealing with the consequences of their hateful actions, many for the first time. They decided to go online and harass Black women, Brown women, and queer folx and found themselves unemployed after those they attacked sent their employer the screenshots. Some have been bullying and harming people in their workplaces for years and are finally being held accountable for their actions and are currently one step away from being unemployed. Some are being recorded saying and doing harmful things in public places and finding out that the companies they work for don’t want to be associated with their toxicity, leaving them to apply for unemployment. I don’t wish unemployment on anyone.

But it couldn’t happen to a nicer set of folx.

That lack of accountability for their actions that permeates whiteness hits hard when their chickens finally come home to roost, and they have to pay the price. We’re seeing more and more white “professionals” having to pay up, and their world is legitimately rocked. We’re seeing their victimhood come to the surface, their unwillingness to digest that if you harm others, you have to take responsibility for that harm and the consequences that come with it. It’s wild to watch. It’s something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, and I am here for it. Don't want to lose your job for harassing and harming Black women and people of color? Then don't harass and harm Black women and people of color. Not "don't get caught," like the "good old days," but don’t start at all because it's so easy to gather the receipts and return your ass to the store for a refund.

Legitimate accountability and the consequences of their actions are shaking white “professionals” to their core. Of course, they think they are victims of all of this as they lose their jobs and fracture their networks because people don’t want to be associated with them. That’s what generations of no accountability and no consequences will do to you. I can't imagine how insulating and infantilizing never having to take responsibility for your actions can be and how invincible it makes many white people feel. They can't stomach losing their cloak of invincibility, y’all, and it’s guilty pleasure-level, popcorn-worthy viewing. And I don't even feel guilty about watching it.

Is this how watching “The Bachelor” feels?