This Week's Opening Thought: January 9, 2023

TW: mentions of systemic racism, generational trauma, and sexual assault.

This week’s opening thought, which I’m sure is going to have some folx looking at me some kind of way: when I see melanated people pledging their allegiance to white supremacy and happily upholding white supremacist ideologies, I can’t help but find myself sitting in an emotional gumbo.

I think about the ongoing harm they cause to their families, communities, and people who look like them and are grappling with similar generational and societal experiences and trauma akin to their own.

I think about how horrible it must feel, how much self-hatred or hatred of their heritage and culture one must harbor in their melanated body to pledge their life and identity to uphold white supremacist ideals and systems. Was the generational and societal trauma so heavy that they couldn’t carry it anymore?

I think about the thoughts of desperate self-preservation that must come from willingly enabling and supporting people and systems who have historically murdered, maimed, sexually assaulted, enslaved, colonized, and oppressed your people with the hope that at least you’ll be safe.

I think about what mentally, emotionally, and physically happens to these melanated people when they realize they aren’t guaranteed safety and acceptance for subservience. I think about what happens to them when they recognize how the whiteness they’ve aligned themselves with views them: as an end to a means, expendable, disposable once they get what they want from them. I can’t imagine how much trauma these folx are carrying, how much they blame themselves for not being good enough when they are used, disposed of, or offered up as sacrificial lambs.

I empathize with them. I care for them.

And I grapple with that empathy and care while fighting the urge to judge and discard them.

It can be both, and it is both because humans are messy and complicated creatures.

I want better for them. I want to be there for them when whiteness smites them because it will smite them at some point. It always does. I want to help them up when the inevitable occurs, and they fall because no one should face their melanated mortality and the fallout of their choices alone, even when their choices have harmed their people. And they will undoubtedly be alone because walking the path of preserving whiteness as a melanated person is a lonely road. But real talk?

I’ll be damned if I sometimes don’t think about extending my hand to help them when they fall and then moving it before they can grab it for help, leaving them to fall on their ass again.

I believe that you reap what you sow. But I also can’t walk away from my people, even if they walk away from me and mine. It’s probably a combination of my codependence and empathy stopping me from walking away from them like Peter Parker walking away from his Spidey suit in the dumpster. But I cannot and will not be their judge and jury. I will not kick them while they’re down. It’s hard not to want to judge them, to shun them. I understand why melanated folx would want to. We don’t owe dangerous and harmful people anything, including melanated people who harm melanated communities. But I can’t judge them.

I’m sure they’re doing more than enough judging of themselves for the both of us.

When I see my people, melanated people, go the route of sympathizing and supporting their oppressors, I hope they don’t irreparably harm their families and communities and eventually realize their missteps and atone. I wish them healing, and I hope they can process their trauma and self-hatred. And I hope when they fall, when whiteness has used and discarded them, the fall doesn’t literally or figuratively kill them and leave them with nothing and no one.

No one deserves to die alone.

Emotional gumbo.

This Week's Opening Thought: January 2, 2023

This week's opening thought: If you're into making New Year's resolutions (I'mma keeping my opinions on New Year's resolutions to my damn self), I implore you to be selfish as hell with said resolutions.

Make your resolutions about your health and well-being that are mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy and not driven by the voices and abuse of others.

Make resolutions around seeking and maintaining the joy and energy you need to thrive and grow.

Make resolutions that help you fight the urge to make resolutions you're "supposed to make" as dictated by societal, familial, and workplace-based pressures.

Make your resolutions for you, by you, and about you.

It's OK to be selfish sometimes. And it will always be OK - and healthy - to be selfish when it comes to what you need to live your life happily while mitigating mental, emotional, and physical harm.

Here's to your resolutions being all about you.

This Week's Opening Thought: December 19, 2022

This week's opening thought for melanated folx: at some point in time, we have to talk about the generations of codependence many of us are carrying in our brains and bodies.

We have to talk about how codependence has impacted how we navigate the world. We have to talk about how the roots of our codependence often lie at the intersection of ethnocultural toxicity and societal norms. We have to talk about how at the core of our codependence, we can usually find a cocktail of systemic oppression, racism, and white supremacy that many of us grapple with every day.

We have to talk about how codependence has led many of us into overextending ourselves in a quest to help everyone and fix everything, to the detriment of our mental, physical, and emotional health. We have to talk about how for many of us, our codependence led us into careers in community work and equity and anti-racism work. Then we have to talk about how that work is killing our brains, bodies, and souls because we have only ever had to engage with being codependent, not being healthy while helping others, and maintaining healthy boundaries. And when we talk about this work killing parts of us, we also have to be willing to have honest conversations about the toll of this work. We have to talk about being honest with organizations that want to hire us to "fix" their racism, equity, and inclusion problems about the toll of this work. And we have to talk about it with clarity and an understanding that the work is theirs to do and not your responsibility, regardless of pay.

We have to talk about how codependence has been modeled for us by our parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents and forced upon us as "taking care of our own" instead of the lack of boundaries and self-care that it is. We have to talk about how the codependence fostered in us from an early age has made many of us feel inadequate and like we're failing at work and in our families. We have to talk about how we can break the cycle and make sure this codependence isn't passed on to the next generation by engaging in the uncomfortable work of unpacking our codependence. And by doing that, we have to talk about having honest conversations about our codependence with family members, parents, and grandparents while crafting and maintaining healthy boundaries in those relationships.

Look, I know this sounds daunting, and some of it hurts when you read it. But you deserve to be healthy – personally, professionally, within your family, and workplace. It's a lifelong journey of unpacking and maintaining, fighting the urge to do it all and fix everything because taking care of everyone and everything but yourself is in your DNA. From my ongoing experience as a recovering codependent, I can tell you that it's not easy, but it's worth it.

Take care of yourself today so the weight of our generational trauma is lessened for the next generation.

That's how you take care of your family and community.

This Week's Opening Thought: December 5, 2022

This week's opening thought: I've had many companies and team leaders reach out to me for equity and anti-racism training and consultation over the years. During this time, I would say that half of those who've reached out to me for my services seek someone to convince their white leaders and team members that they should care about every person they work with. And that's one of the core problems with what many people believe equity and anti-racism work is: finding ways to dupe someone into caring for others.

There is no method or belief system built into equity and anti-racism work that can "convince" someone to care about the lives and societal and generational trauma of others. No one should have to be "convinced" that they should care about others. No one should have to con someone into being a human being that cares for others without kudos and photo ops. You can't trick someone into caring about Black lives, queer lives, and the struggles of Global Majority communities. You can't sucker someone into caring about accessibility and safer, braver spaces for all.

If you can't care about others without someone massaging your ego and constantly reinforcing your need to believe you're a good person? Then I'm still not convincing you to care.

I'm being asked to give you a participation award while co-signing and normalizing your lack of interest in empathy and compassion unless it benefits you in some way.

And you're asking me to do this as a Black man in the United States.

You're asking people who are a part of communities that are consciously and unconsciously harmed by those you want them to "convince" to do the heavy lifting. And if you're seeking those services, you've likely convinced yourself that this was the only way this work could be done in your organization.

I'm convinced many of y'all need more than convincing.

This Week's Opening Thought: November 28, 2022

This week's opening thought: If candidates, hiring managers, and staff members in your organization give you feedback on your interview process, and you hear your organization's interviews feel like:

• Interrogations;

• High-pressure situations where candidates feel like they have to show how much they love your company to possibly work for you (without knowing anything about your workplace culture other than what you've told them) instead of being evaluated for what they'd bring to your company;

• You're making candidates run a gauntlet of sorts with seemingly endless interviews in a lengthy months-long process;

• or "gotcha" situations where candidates feel they have to give the "right" answers to be considered for the job?

Your company needs to re-evaluate its anti-racism statement, equity and inclusion statement, and the company values that they like to trot out and wave like a flag of honor because y'all aren't living up to any of that.

Just sayin'.