This Week's Opening Thought: July 1, 2024

This week's opening thought: I call people in and out as needed. And I get called in and out, too. I'm not immune to being called in or out. I welcome it. I'm fallible, and sometimes, I need to get checked. I believe that part of being a decent person (not a "good" person, mind you, but a decent person. That "good person" schtick is christian values-driven patriarchal white supremacist nonsense in western culture) is being able to be called to task for your actions or behaviors and to learn from your missteps. I'll only kick it with those willing to call me in or out when I mess up and do harm. But real talk?

Some of you hold yourself to a different or non-existent standard of accountability and self-accountability, and it shows.

I have had to block a lot of folx lately—like, A LOT. And I'm usually not sad about that. Block and delete exist for a reason. But it's been a little bittersweet lately—I'd argue even a little sad. Why?

I've had to block a lot of people of color and intersectional folx lately.

I'm not naive. I know how patriarchal heteronormative white supremacist ideology works. I understand how self-loathing generated by centuries of generational trauma manifests. But it never feels OK to have to check melanated folx and intersectional folx who are so deeply entrenched in patriarchal white supremacist ideology that they are inherently tools of their oppressors.

I feel for them. I can't imagine what unresolved and unearthed traumas sit in their brains and bodies to engage in oppression willingly. To be willingly oppressive, to have hateful views in a world that has been conditioned to hate you for just existing, has to be quite the internal struggle. I can call them in. I can educate. I can empathize. I can also hope they find healing and wish them peace and mindfulness. But they can go find that peace and mindfulness somewhere way over there, away from me and mine, because it's no one's job to coddle someone and give them countless opportunities to do you, and other people harm when they refuse to unpack their sh--. People often show you who they are, and you have to eventually take in the messages you're receiving or become an accessory to their oppressive views and trauma.

You can't teach anyone who doesn't want to learn or believes they know everything or "enough," identities or ethnocultural heritage connections be damned.

Block 'em, delete 'em, and ask someone to burn some sage for their soul while they stand downwind so the smoke can hit their asses far away from your vicinity.

That's as close as you can get to saving someone's soul.

This Week's Opening Thought: June 17, 2024

This week's opening thought: Michigan Republican primary congressional candidate Anthony Hudson posted a video on his TikTok account in which an AI-enhanced voice of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr endorsed him.

Anthony is a person of pallor, but I probably didn't need to tell you that. You probably knew it as soon as you read the first sentence above.

Anthony is also uber-conservative in the most dangerous ways, but I probably didn't need to tell you that, either. You probably knew it as soon as you read the first sentence above, or at least knew it by the time you finished the second paragraph.

I'm not going to post the video. I've heard it, and it's not something I'm willing to subject others to. It's triggering as hell. But here's what the AI-generated voice of Dr. King had to say:

"I have another dream. Yes, it is me, Martin Luther King. I came back from the dead to say something. As I was saying, I have another dream that Anthony Hudson will be Michigan's 8th District's next congressman. Yes, I have a dream again. OK, now I am going back to where I came from. Goodbye."

And, of course, Anthony is unapologetic about the whole thing after claiming he would fire the volunteer responsible for creating and posting the video. He's made a complete 180. But I probably didn't need to tell you that, either, if you know anything about white supremacy and how it intersects with self-preservation and pious idiocy.

Anthony believes that if Dr. King were alive today, he would, and I quote, "endorse me and my vision for a better Michigan because he would be disgusted at the complete suffering of Flint, Michigan residents under the current administration's watch."

Yep. You're right, Anthony. Dr. King would be disgusted at the ongoing suffering of the people of Flint under every President's watch for the last 12 years.

He'd also be disgusted with you trying to use his voice to suit your anti-Black, uber-conservative agenda propelled by racism and white supremacy.

What a way to prove you know nothing about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., his work, or civil rights in general, Anthony.

One day, some person of pallor will read Dr. King's work, absorb its contents, and understand what he's talking about so they can check every other person of pallor around them using Dr. King's words to suit their own hateful agendas and beliefs. I probably won't be here when that day comes, but I hope someone from the Black delegation is there to witness it.

Like I needed another reason to loathe the application of AI in our daily lives.

This Week's Opening Thought: June 10, 2024

This week's opening thought: It's wild to me how we constantly tell people to do work they love or are passionate about while consciously and unconsciously ignoring the privilege of finding work that feeds your soul and allows you to be human and vulnerable in community with others while making a wage that will enable you to break generational chains of poverty. We never get in the weeds and talk about how little the work of serving others pays and how much weight it puts on the brains and bodies of those doing it. Yet, those of us doing the work are stuck in co-dependence cycles because many of us have been the people who needed help at some point in our lives and feel driven to "pay it forward" now that our circumstances are somewhat different while not earning enough income to retire before our bodies force us to.

And we're doing all of this while swimming upstream in a society driven by white supremacy and forced individualism intended to halt and stymie collective liberation.

Oof.

It's hard out here, y'all.

This Week's Opening Thought: June 3, 2024

This week's opening thought for senior leaders in organizations: Your homophobic, biphobic, transphobic workplace should probably not be celebrating Pride Month.

Ain't nobody got time for all of that performative nonsense. Real sh-- is going on all around us to the point where we're tired enough without having to put up with a month of performative shenanigans that are nothing more than another weapon to harm folx who work for you while you pat yourselves on the back.

We need more than a shout-out to Pride in a company email or team meeting. We need more than a performative PR stunt.

We need y'all to take the actionable steps to bounce the homophobes and transphobes from your organization's roster.

We need y'all to stand on business and call in and out those who do LGBTQIAA+ communities harm while representing you in these streets.

We need y'all to check yourselves and hold yourselves accountable for contributing to harm to queer and trans folx and looking the other way when your queer-identifying colleagues are hurt so you can stay in good standing with the oppressors you consider the in-crowd at work.

We need y'all to hold your human resources department accountable for allowing homophobia and transphobia to be shoulder-shrug moments and not actionable offenses.

Trinkets and hollow platitudes mean nothing when your workplace reflects the world outside of it in the worst possible ways.

There's a list of things that do not look good with a rainbow motif.

Your company logo is at the top of that list.

Stand on something or let the month pass you by.

This Week's Opening Thought: May 13, 2024

Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual assault, misconduct, homophobia, and misogyny.

This week's opening thought: I saw a lot of mind-numbingly fragile takes from cis men during the "Bear or Man" debate. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. But one of the dumbest "hot takes" I stumbled upon was from a cis man of pallor who wrote a whole dissertation around arguably the weakest "not all men" stance possible:

Not supervised men.

Yes, you read that right.

This dude wrote a whole diatribe stating that cis men aren't a danger to women and femmes when other men are around to check them on their behaviors.

Does anybody want to tell him, or should I?

The deluded belief that the majority of cis men stop other cis men from harming women and femmes made me want to take a nap. In a country founded through cis men of pallor-driven lynch mobs, where cis male-perpetrated hate crimes have reached all-time highs, and where those who have been sexually harassed and assaulted by cis men rarely get the consistent levels of justice they deserve for their assailants, to think that somehow a group of cis men standing nearby deters the dangerous and toxic nature of masculinity is so off-base it makes my brain hurt. One, the idea that we need to "supervise" grown-ass men to stop them from possibly harming someone speaks volumes about our societal culture. Two, I grew up in a woman-led household with a father who modeled how not to treat women and femmes. I've spent my whole life checking cis men on their behaviors. I've gotten into physical altercations over this sh--.

And other men were standing right there, either saying nothing or participating in trying to shame me for "not being a bro."

I worked in human resources for a college a few years back whose maintenance department was ripe with sexual harassment and intimidation. One team member, a woman, had to leave the college after team members sexually harassed her and made lewd passes at her all the time. One cis man came forward to state his discomfort with cis men in the department simulating acts of sexual assault toward other cis men in the department, himself included. When I addressed these issues with the department directors, they chuckled and said, "You know, boys will be boys," I swiftly said, "No. No, they aren't. I've never thought I should come to work and simulate sex acts or harm others. I don't know any 'boys' that do that." The room went quiet, with a few men holding their heads low or avoiding eye contact altogether. At that moment, I knew they had all witnessed these things for months and years and decided not to speak up or speak out.

A week later, they requested that I no longer be one of their primary HR contacts.

So, no, "not supervised men" ain't gonna fly.

Hell, I'm a cis man, and I'd rather deal with the bear.

[Image description: a comic panel of a bear embracing a woman. The woman shouts, "My hero!" as the world burns behind them.]

Image description: a comic panel of a bear embracing a woman. The woman shouts, "My hero!" as the world burns behind them.