In today’s edition of “What In the Hell Is Wrong With This Country?”, we find ourselves in Illinois, where a church and its congregation have decided on a “fast from whiteness” for Lent.
You read that right.
“Fasting from whiteness.”
Read MoreThis week's opening thought: I've been hearing the words "psychological safety" lately in my work with organizations. Like, a lot. And by "a lot," I mean multiple times a week. I'm sure you can guess the race and power and positionality of those who keep saying these two words to me. I'm also sure you can ascertain why they're saying it too. The more I dive into walking white people with power through how necessary it is to sit with and process discomfort around whiteness and its need to consciously and unconsciously uphold white supremacist ideology, the more white people bring up "psychological safety."
"Shouldn't our [white people's] psychological safety matter?"
"But what about the psychological safety of [white] people who want to have these conversations but are uncomfortable?"
"They're [white people in the workplace] scared of you because you aren't prioritizing their psychological safety."
Guess what, white people? Your white supremacist needs are showing. You might want to tuck ‘em in. Tan France from Queer Eye can help you with that front tuck.
No one owes you "psychological safety" around dismantling your views and being a better person and community member, white people. Especially not people of color. Especially not Black people. And especially not when you enthusiastically hire people of color, Black people, Black women for your company's equity and inclusion jobs and then turn around and treat them as if they are oppressing you by pushing you to unpack your hot messes.
Something y'all need to understand: you're not oppressed in these situations where you push for your "psychological safety." You are the oppressor. Your workplace culture is a tool of the oppressor, and you're wielding it with aplomb. Every time you open your mouth and ask for "psychological safety," you hammer home how necessary your white supremacist workplace culture ideology is for you to be present at work, to have peace of mind. You want "psychological safety," but you don't want it for everyone because you only mention these words when it centers on you and yours. No one is coming to me saying that the people of color they work with or report to them are asking for "psychological safety." This is a whiteness-centered request.
Unless we're discussing building, fortifying, and maintaining a safer and braver space for all employees, especially marginalized employees and employees of color, we're not talking about anything helpful. You're building, fortifying, and maintaining an electrified barbed wire fence for white people to keep discomfort out – and you're asking people of color to help you build it.
I suppose that's par for the course, though, seeing how whiteness has been enslaving and trying to force people of color to build things for white people's comfort for generations now.
Maybe white people at work should focus on breaking the cycles of abuse at play in the workplace created by their forefathers and less on how they don't want to deal with unpacking their perceived right to comfort. Maybe you wouldn't have to bring up your "psychological safety" all the time, and we could get some actual meaningful work done at work.
Maybe.
Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.
I made oatmeal raisin cookies the other day. Why? Because I had a hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies. So I set the oven to 350, made cookie dough, dolloped heaping globs of dough on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, and made two batches of oatmeal raisin cookies.
I made them while amid two virtual meetings.
I interrupted those meetings to check on my oatmeal raisin cookies' progress and put the second batch in the oven.
And I told the people I was in those meetings with why I was putting them on hold.
Some of y'all might consider that "unprofessional." Some of y'all might think that I wasn't present or focused on the content of those meetings. In response to those notions, I share two things:
1. What you call "unprofessional" I call refuting white supremacist workplace culture and white supremacist ideology. Sit down and unpack that on your time.
2. I was present and focused on the parts of those meetings that pertained to me and my work. It isn't my fault that those meetings were heavily bogged down with white supremacist urgency. White workplaces and their urgency, their need to make everything a DEFCON-5 situation, has nothing to do with me and my work. It's not my job to carry white supremacist workplace ideology in my brain, body, or soul. Real talk? Me making cookies was more important than their urgency. Why?
Me making those cookies symbolizes how we all need to work on not carrying the burden of every little thing happening at work and elevating them to urgent matters. Why is it so "urgent" now if this "urgent matter" wasn't urgent a week ago, a month ago, three months ago when it was at its apex? And why aren't y'all ever this urgent when homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, ableism, and intersectional hate is playing out in your workplace?
Do you know what was urgent, however?
Eating them oatmeal raisin cookies. Not only were they delicious, but I also enjoyed them with no stress in my body or weight on my mind.
Don't walk around with the random crises at your workplace on your shoulders or weighing down your mind. Most of what happens at work every day isn't a crisis: it's white supremacy and patriarchy in action. And if your workplace doesn't want to address these issues but wants to freak out over that report that is suddenly due in 48 hours?
Set your boundaries and make yourself some damn cookies.
[Image description: a clear bowl can be seen sitting on a dark wooden table. Inside the bowl is 20 oatmeal raisin cookies, sitting in the bowl at various angles to make sure they all fit.]
This week’s opening thought: I had my first meeting of the day at 10:00 am this morning. It was with a white cis female consultant. The meeting started with her trying to “school” me and “teach” me after I shared that the way I do my work isn’t a fit for many companies. She told me if I were more respectable and worked harder to make relationships with white people who found me scary, uncomfortable, or labeled me as dangerous, more comfortable, and safe for white people, my work would be easier.
Needless to say, that meeting ended early.
I couldn’t even make it to 11:00 am, y’all, without having fun with micro-aggressions live via satellite from my TV room. It made that Law and Order marathon I had playing in the background on mute hit different.
When white professionals disrespect us, say they’re scared of us, or label us as dangerous or uncooperative when we aren’t the palatable person of color they think we should be? The response isn’t for us to homogenize ourselves for whiteness. We need white professionals to quit pushing for Black folx, Black women, people of color to “be respectful” as a solution to the racism we face. Your “advice” isn’t helpful. Your “advice” doesn’t stop our jobs from being on the line if we don’t take your “advice” and implement it “just right” (note: there is no such thing as “just right” – that’s just the way y’all act when giving “advice”). We need less “advice” and more stepping up, speaking up, and speaking out when your white colleagues come at us with their micro-aggressions. We need white professionals to call in or call out their white colleagues instead of co-signing or being silent when the fear-mongering and characterizations begin.
We need y’all not to take your own advice.
I’ll leave y’all to sit with that, the way the white cis female consultant I met with this morning left me sitting in the Zoom meeting when she got livid about me calling her out for her actions and abruptly exited stage left.
I'm not watching the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. I'm not watching because I like my peace of mind, and I think we all knew this would be some racist, white supremacist, misogynistic, anti-Black nonsense. From what I'm seeing of the snippets and clips I've stumbled across over the last few days? I was right.
These mediocre white folx, white folx who have accomplished nothing in their lives outside of bringing their hate into national politics, are deadset on attacking Ketanji's intelligence. They're throwing all sorts of CRT fear-mongering and random vaguely abortion-related questions. The anti-Black rhetoric, the abrasiveness, the pushiness coming out of these white politicians' mouths as she maintains herself and doesn't crumble under their hatred is a window into what Black women face just trying to exist in this world every day. And this is why I can't watch these events in real-time.
Existing shouldn't always have to be this damn hard, y'all.
Being a Black woman shouldn't always have to be this hard.
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