So...I've been banned from LinkedIn and I'm unsure as to if/when they'll reinstate my account.
This past Saturday afternoon I went to sign into my LinkedIn account and found that I had been restricted and my account was suspended. I reached out to LinkedIn Support to find out why. Wanna know why? Read on.
Read MoreThis week’s opening thought: I don’t know who needs to hear this but trust is earned. People having and maintaining their faith in you and your intentions is earned. Trust is not a given. Faith is not a given. And when you deliver a blow to that trust and faith? It’s your job to atone and do the hard work to repair and rebuild that eroded trust and faith. And it is not the job of those you’ve harmed by thinking you’re owed someone’s trust and faith in you to just magically trust you or have faith in you again with no atonement or repairs initiated on your part.
Whoever needed to hear that (even if they didn’t want to)? I hope you caught all of that.
Sounds like you’ve got some work to do.
This week’s opening thought, specifically for white people but also for people of color with power and privilege in white workplaces: I don’t owe you a smile.
No person of color, no Black person, no Brown person, no Black woman or femme, no marginalized person owes you a smile every day at work.
I don’t smile all the time, many of us don’t smile all the time, because frankly, we have to sit at white work all day long with faux white liberals and toxic white folx doing and saying hateful things that we know we can’t call out without incurring penalties. We watch people of color who have a thimble-full of power perpetuate and participate in hate and white supremacy. So I, we, try to roll with it, grit through it as much as we possibly can. But often by mid-week, I’m tired of y’all. WE are tired of y’all. And we can’t stop our faces from showing our exhaustion with you. That’s the point in time where y’all say things to us like, “You should smile more,” or “I like you when you’re happy.” That’s also the point in time where we have to stop ourselves from snapping on y’all because once again we know we can’t call y’all out without incurring penalties.
Y’all are exhausting; draining. Your systems, your “we’re a family” work cultures, are exhausting and draining. I don’t smile at or about things that exhaust and drain my soul and stomp on my ability to seek joy and thrive in my work. Smiles aren’t a given. Whiteness is still on some chattel slavery sh— when it comes to people of color and work, pushing that smiling and nodding and agreeing with being oppressed are unspoken rules for working while Black and I am not here for it. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I don’t owe you a smile. WE don’t owe you a smile. But you damn sure owe us a way less toxic and hateful work experience. You also owe us way less white fragility and white violence, especially when y’all claim to be “allies” while upholding oppressive work cultures.
Time to pay what you owe.
This week's opening thought: If you're white and every time a person of color calls out white people and white institutions for their perpetuation, complicity, and silence in the face of ongoing oppression and hate the only thing you feel the urge to do is to play devil's advocate or pass the blame for murder and oppression to other people and groups?
You need to go right ahead and just embrace the fact that you would rather be passively racist and passively advocate for white supremacy to thrive - or that you would rather reap the benefits of white supremacy than question any aspect of white supremacy through a critical lens that will force you to examine yourself - than to give a damn about me and my people's health, safety, and well-being.
Please note that this is especially true of the "good" white folx who think they're offering a "different perspective" to people of color when what they're really doing is keeping the white supremacy train rolling as they pat themselves on the back for reading some Ibram X. Kendi over the weekend.
As for the people of color who can't fight the urge to play devil's advocate or pass the blame for murder and oppression to other people and groups? They've got therapists who can help you process the self-hate and white supremacy dreams you've fed into. I recommend beginning the long journey through unpacking your mess.
Feeling raw now? Here's a picture of a puppy to soothe your fragility. But rest assured that even the puppy knows what's up.
This week’s opening thought: If you’re Black I will always be rooting for your success and joy…right up until you show me you’re anti-Black. And when I say anti-Black I’m talking about the intersections of Blackness and homophobia, transphobia, ableism, sexism, and classism. You don’t get to pick and choose whose Blackness is valid to you under your umbrella of biases, stereotypes, and phobias and still claim to be pro-Black.
I don’t root for the success and joy of openly hateful people - melanin be damned.