This Week's Opening Thought: April 17, 2023

TW: Anti-Blackness, gun violence, white supremacist terrorism.

This week's opening thought: They're attempting to murder little Black boys because they had the wrong address.

They're shooting to kill through their front doors when they see little Black boys on their doorsteps. They have no hesitation when it comes to taking the lives of little Black boys, little Black boys who rang their doorbell by mistake because they had the wrong address.

They're aiming their guns at the heads of little Black boys who show up at their front doors with no hesitation, little Black boys who rang their doorbell by mistake, hoping to pick up their siblings.

They're stepping outside their homes and standing over the bodies of little Black boys they've wounded with no hesitation in front of their homes by shooting them through the front door, little Black boys hoping to pick up their siblings, little Black boys who had the wrong address.

They're stepping outside to finish off little Black boys who show up at their front doors with no hesitation, little Black boys who had the wrong address and rang their doorbell by mistake, hoping to pick up their siblings.

They're willing to leave little Black boys who had the wrong address to die on their front porches, aiming at their prone Black bodies and intending to end their lives as they lay on the pavement, hoping to take the lives of little Black boys who had the wrong address.

The neighbors in the neighborhood where little Black boys have the wrong address are more than willing not to help little Black boys who have the wrong address as they pull their severely injured bodies door to door, looking for someone, anyone, in the neighborhood to help them. Little Black boys are left crawling, bleeding from gunshots driven by the hatred of someone's white neighbor, watching as the neighbors of the person who tried to kill them refuse to help them.

Little Black boys who have the wrong address, who ring the wrong doorbell, hoping to pick up their siblings, lose their innocence and any faith in humanity they had in their souls because they now know how the world views them.

Little Black boys hoping to pick up their siblings but have the wrong address learn well before adulthood that white people who try to murder them get to sleep in their beds feeling justified in their actions and often facing no repercussions for their hatred-fueled actions.

Little Black boys with the wrong address learn that their existence means they will never get the justice they deserve because their lives don't matter to those with power, positionality, and a lack of melanin.

But the United States doesn't have a gun or anti-Blackness problem.

The United States doesn't have a white supremacist terrorism problem.

Everything's fine.

Everything's working as intended, right white people?

The Black people who work for you, with you, are working as intended today, right? I mean, it's Monday. They should be working for you and with you with smiles on their faces, right?

Everything's fine.

Everything's working as intended.

The Black people who work for you, with you, aren't physically laying in a pool of blood, clinging to life, looking for help. They're physically present at work, as intended, right? Sure. They're physically present.

But their souls aren't.

Their minds aren't.

In many respects, their bodies aren't present either. How could they be?

Black lives in the United States are inherently us ringing the doorbell and having the wrong address because it has always been the wrong address for Africans and their descendants still enslaved on unceded land.

They're attempting to murder little Black boys with the wrong address. Sometimes they murder the body, but they always murder our souls, hope, joy, and belief that we deserve to live.

But everything's fine.

Everything's working as intended.

To my Black people: take care of yourselves and your family and friends, even when your workplaces decide spreadsheets matter more than your body and soul. You matter, even if the world says otherwise.

This Week's Opening Thought: April 10, 2023

This week’s opening thought to any of us who want to be viewed as “allies,” “accomplices,” or decent people: the moment you believe that there is no learning and listening left to do is when you become a liability to those communities you keep claiming you want to support and elevate.

Suppose you’re closed off to learning, unlearning, re-learning, and re-envisioning what you’ve been told is the right way to learn by the white supremacist concept of education you were subjected to in your formative years. If that’s the case, you will be another contributor to the problems those you claim you want to help have been trying to overcome for generations.

Suppose you’re unwilling to hear new perspectives from younger generations. Suppose you’re reluctant to hear experience-driven views from generations living and doing this work before yours. If that’s the case, you will be another person contributing to silencing communities that are historically and systemically held down and often rendered invisible.

Suppose you’re unwilling to be called in or out for your words and actions. Suppose your response to being called in or out is not to hear what is being shared but to go on the defensive. If that’s the case, you are as much of a danger to those you claim you want to support and elevate as the rest of the world around them that is intent on harming them.

Do you like considering yourself a decent person who helps others? Well, decent people spend their lives listening and learning from everyone they meet who feels safer and braver enough to share their insights and experiences with them. Then decent people take what they’ve learned and heard, process it, pay people for their time and emotional labor in human ways, then apply their learning to themselves to improve and push others who share their power and positionality to do the same.

There’s no half-assing learning and listening, especially not when people’s lives and safety are in constant danger.

This Week's Opening Thought: April 3, 2023

This week’s opening thought: I need white people, especially white people who have a great deal of power, privilege, and positionality in all spaces, to be honest about their lack of interest in dismantling white supremacy and their upholding of white supremacist ideologies and anti-Blackness.

Own your sh--.

If you want to read a bunch of anti-racism books for clout and bragging rights in an attempt not to apply what you’ve read and evolve your thinking but to seek kudos from melanated folx? Own that you only want gold stars, not meaningful change.

Do you think there’s no dismantling work you need to do because you’re not racist? Do you think that because you’ve got one Black friend or you “get along” with Black and melanated co-workers and neighbors, you’re “doing your part?” Own that you’re not interested in the lifelong work of maintaining being an anti-racist person.

Are you unwilling to hear from Black and melanated folx that you’ve harmed them with your words or actions without thinking it’s their fault, their “need to be the victim,” or that you’re justified in your hateful acts because melanated folx aren’t always friendly to you? Do you immediately think the person calling you in or out is trying to diminish your character because you’re a “good person,” and they should see that? Own that you’re unwilling to process the discomfort of owning the harm you’ve caused. Own that you’re not interested in anything but melanated folx validating your “goodness.”

If you want to prescribe to white supremacy-driven anti-Black double standards, denigrating Black women for their actions while applauding white women for the same actions in the same arena and on the same national stage? Own that you support whiteness and only support melanated folx and Black bodies when they conform to and make themselves palatable for whiteness.

Own who you are and what you represent. If you’re going to be a part of the 400+ year problem and hinder progress, have some integrity and own that it’s who you are.

What’s wrong? Why are you getting so agitated while reading this? I thought y’all liked ownership.

At least many of your forefathers did.

This Week's Opening Thought: March 27, 2023

This week's opening thought: white supremacy in action is when elected officials decide the best way to handle their unfounded fears and insecurities about a popular phone app is to hold public hearings around banning its use.

White supremacy is when the popular phone app you claim you're scared of does the same data collecting that other apps do, yet it is somehow "more dangerous" because it's a Chinese-owned company.

White supremacy is attacking the app company's Singaporean CEO with an hours-long "line of questioning" that's a thinly-veiled xenophobic and anti-Asian hate crime played out on a world stage.

White supremacy in action is also when a major clothing company decides that it's easier to use AI-generated models than to put in the work to source and hire models outside of the white physical "body standard" norm.

White supremacy in action is when you could make an effort to find and elevate Black and Brown models, Indigenous models, Asian models, Pacific Islander models, models with disabilities, and models with a variety of body shapes but decide using computer-generated images is good enough.

White supremacy in action is the company sharing this change in a major press release and wording it in such a way that the decision-makers in their company believe they should get kudos for their new "revolutionary diversity efforts."

On the surface, these two situations may seem separate to some of you. But don't get it twisted. They are branches from the same old haggard tree.

That tree desperately needs a wind storm to uproot its gnarled and deeply-rooted grip on the soil of generations.

This Week's Opening Thought: March 20, 2023

This week's opening thought: if someone calls you in regarding your actions and behaviors, actions and behaviors that uphold or amplify hate, racism, anti-Blackness, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, and all the intersections of oppression, and your apology is less of an apology and more of an excuse as to why you did or said what you did or said or a way to posit yourself as a victim guess what?

It's not a proper apology.

Try again.

This time with feeling.