On Acronyms, Action, and Schoolhouse Rock

(Not so) hot take: legitimate equity and inclusion an acronym or committee does not make.

All of the BJEDI, JEDI, IDEA, DEI, EDI, and other assorted acronyms you can come up with will not replace action and initiatives that gradually build stronger and more sustainable workplace cultures. Acronyms don't matter if you aren't putting in the work. Acronyms are just words. Those words are nouns until you make them verbs and just verbs until you decide to put in the hard work that makes them action verbs.

Schoolhouse Rock taught a whole generation that but you wouldn’t know it by lookin’ at that generation running victory laps with their acronyms and committees.

On Conversations about Racism, Conflict, and the Dangerous Art of Avoidance

Image Description: A picture of two people arguing. Silhouettes of their heads and hands can be seen in the foreground as they engage in a shouting match. In the background, a witness to the altercation can be seen covering their ears while wearing a blindfold.

Whiteness often looks at discussions about race as too confrontational, too heavy, too steeped in conflict. Many white people aren't looking to engage in this kind of conflict. It's scary. It's counterintuitive to the lessons of whiteness. But here's the thing: this work is conflict. It's a conflict with your values, your beliefs, your behaviors. It's a conflict with the white people in your life from whom you learned your values and beliefs. It's engaging in conflict with your history of perpetuating and participating in oppression.

It's conflict. Period.

There's no way you can talk about unpacking and unlearning 400+ years of white-led oppressive states, actions, and indoctrinated beliefs and have it be roses and kittens and kumbaya. It's not comfortable to talk about. It will never be comfortable to talk about. Nothing traumatic and generationally damaging will ever be comfortable to talk about. But we have to dive in and talk about this pain; we have to engage in this conflict. It's a matter of life, death, and breaking the chains of oppressive generational cycles - yours and mine. Avoidance doesn't promote change or make dealing with these conflicts any easier. It makes them worse and more untenable. Thinking that "somebody else will handle it" and that your whiteness absolves you of having to engage deeply has yet to yield long-term change for white people and white culture.

Does it suck that your white forefathers have left these conflicts in your lap to deal with? Sure. But don't do what they did and pass these conflicts on for the next generation to engage with and address. It might suck for you to engage in this conflict. But it sucks worse for Black folx, for Native folx, for people of color in the United States far more than it ever will for you when you choose to avoid these conflicts.

On "Professionalism" and Kamen Rider T-Shirts

One of the best decisions I ever made in my life and career was deciding that the concept of “professionalism” was white supremacist thinking and that it was not for me. It’s not a coincidence that the only people who have ever questioned my “professionalism” were white folx with power and positionality who were uncomfortable with me bringing my full self into what they viewed as their workplace.

They can keep questioning.

I’m gonna keep rockin’ these Kamen Rider t-shirts with my nappy hair and my pop culture references while landing podcast appearances, clients across the United States, national conference presentation offers, and local EDI summit invites.

“Professional.”

On Kyle, Crocodile Tears, and White Lives Losing Value When Defending Black Lives

Prepare yourself for Kyle Rittenhouse either getting off clean as a whistle or getting the most minimal time possible for murdering two WHITE people at a BLM protest that his mom dropped him off at in a state he didn’t even live in. It’s the American way, y’know.

See, if Kyle killed two white people “just ‘cause” he’d be deemed a monster, unstable. But he killed two white people trying to support BLACK people. And in the United States? White people like Kyle don’t do time for that. Once he turned on the crocodile tears it was a wrap.

White systems/institutions like the U.S. legal system will always protect white man-children like Kyle, especially when they kill people connected to Black bodies in any way. At that moment, the white men Kyle killed “forfeited their lives” as soon as they cared about Black folx.

Kyle wasn’t “in danger” that night. He went to that protest looking to harm someone. He just didn’t think he’d have to pay for it if he did.

And he likely won’t.

Truth be told, if he’d killed two Black men this case would’ve wrapped days ago.

On White Folx, Social Media Anti-Racism, Enthusiasm, Faux Liberalism, and the Good/Bad Binary

“White folks in 2020: How can we be better allies and help combat systemic racism? Teach us!

White folks in 2021: Stop talking about racism. Your “wokeness” is alienating everybody and causing us to lose elections.

Chile, I can’t keep up.”

Whew, chile, tea .

Last year, when white folx across the United States suddenly started “caring” about Black lives after witnessing a Black man’s police-initiated murder go viral, I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself. I stated loudly on every platform I could that I wondered how long their enthusiasm would last before “liberal” white folx got exhausted with having to be present and grappling with the expectations of “allyship” and calling their fellow white folx in and out. I watched as so many white people swore they were engaged for the long haul that they would prove me wrong and stand with me and mine.

Fast forward a few months, and the enthusiasm became a light roar. Jump to now, and I haven’t heard or seen anything from any of these “good” white people for over a year. None of those folx have continued dismantling their white supremacy because the deeper self-work doesn’t make for dope Tik-Toks or IG posts. There were no cookies and gold stars for faux anti-racist mediocrity, so the bulk of the “good” white folx slowly returned to cat pics and hollow affirmations.

By the fall of 2020, most of them had moved on. Gone were the Black Lives Matter posts and the quoting of Black leaders and activists. I mean, they were distracted! It was pumpkin spice season! They also didn’t want to discuss the fact that white people, especially white women, overwhelmingly voted against Black lives in local elections across the country and the presidential election. Of course, white folx went back to trying to shift the responsibility and blame to Black folx, forgetting all about our lives mattering.

Over the past few months:

• Black folx are back to being described as the scourge of the nation.

• Black folx are being called divisive and evil for talking about the “dangers” of CRT.

• Black folx are being constantly told that our asks for accountability and real work are “alienating allies.”

On top of all of that, like clockwork, we’re back to being criticized for somehow not bailing white politicians out in elections where once again white people, especially white women, overwhelmingly voted for hateful white people.

Guess Black lives only matter to whiteness when they are in servitude to them and keeping them comfortable in their good/bad binary paradox while supporting white supremacist ideology.

Sorry - not trying to “alienate everybody.”