Monday's Opening (Year-Closing) Thought: December 27, 2021

I wasn't going to post a final opening thought for 2021 because, well, I'm chillin' at the crib and felt that I'd said all I needed to say this year. But then I saw that Dr. Fauci and the CDC admitted that they shortened the COVID-19 isolation guidelines to get people back to work faster. While hearing the CDC share their "reasoning" wasn't even remotely surprising, it did prompt me to give y'all one last opening thought. Consider this my ending thought for 2021.

Ending thought for 2021: your value to your family, your loved ones, your community, to humankind is much more than a job or career that is pushing you to put yourself and your community at risk during a global pandemic. Just because the government has given your employer the power to expect you back to work in a matter of days after testing positive for a contagious virus doesn't mean that all you are is a series of tasks you perform for financial compensation 5-7 days a week. Capitalism or not, you matter beyond the boundaries of a workplace and its culture and pressures.

I'll see y'all in 2022. Take care of yourselves and each other.

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.

Monday's Opening Thought: December 20, 2021

This week's opening thought: your voice in the face of oppression or hurdles to progress is just as important and valid as the voices of those who do nothing with their time but take up space, shout down and drown the voices of others, and add nothing to the proceedings but misinformation, narcissism, ignorance, and hate. These voices that overtake the conversation and overwhelm others are seeking to make you silent, gaslight you, invalidate your thoughts because that is how they aim to maintain their power and comfort. But here's the thing: when someone's voice is a weapon of hate and oppression, their thoughts and words are invalid. Why?

Hate doesn't deserve validation.

Narcissism does not earn you validation or the option to be the center of attention.

Willful ignorance and misinformation do not make your words more valid just because you bulldoze others and speak louder than anyone in the room.

Whiteness, power, privilege all operate on the belief that their voice and thoughts are the most important in any discourse and that the voices of those lacking whiteness, power, and privilege are tertiary at best. This is especially true around discussions centering on hate and oppression. Societally, we have all been either forced to begrudgingly accept this or taught that our skin color, and the power and privilege that comes with it, give someone the dominant stance and viewpoint regarding hate and oppression in any conversation. It does not. Adhering to and perpetuating dated patriarchal, white supremacist, hateful societal norms does not validate your voice and thoughts. They make you a toxic and dangerous person. And harmful people do not deserve a platform.

Speak truth to power. Let your voice be heard, even when dealing with those who prefer your silence and oppression over being told their thoughts and views are invalid in a society aiming to be better than those who came before them. Let the strength of your voice turn down the volume on theirs.

Ain't like they're sharing anything worth listenin' to anyway.

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.

Monday's Opening Thought: December 13, 2021

This week’s opening thought: “I’m set in my ways” is the worst excuse ever for why you’ve decided to maintain being sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, or ableist. “I grew up in a different time” is a close second. Neither statement absolves you of doing and saying hateful and harmful things at work, at home, or in the community. And don’t go blaming the way you grew up, the people you grew up with, or the era you grew up in for your beliefs and behaviors. You don’t get a pass for being older and unwilling to learn and unlearn. Hell, you don’t get a pass for being younger or middle-aged and being reluctant to learn and unlearn either. You have the autonomy to evolve and be a better version of who you are. You’re just choosing not to act on that autonomy.