On "Allyship Lists" and Barry White Songs

Too many white "professionals" love to tell other white people how to be "allies" while not being "allies" themselves.

Y'all love posting your lists of "things to do to be an ally" while you appropriate melanated people's cultures for your hair, clothes, and aesthetics.

Y'all love chastising other white people for not standing up and speaking out while not standing up or speaking out when your supervisors and co-workers hand out intersectional micro-aggressions and anti-Black rhetoric like party favors to your colleagues of color.

Y'all love telling other white people that they must listen to Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, and Pacific Islander voices. Then y'all proceed to shut down Black voices, speak over melanated folx in discussions, go on the defensive when called in or out by melanated folx, and make sure you stay far away from the idea of paying people of color for their time and teachings.

Maybe y'all need to listen to some Barry White. Maybe then y'all could practice what you preach.

This Week's Opening Thought: August 1, 2022

This week’s opening thought: once you understand how white supremacy operates and how it manifests in the actions and beliefs of people starting from an early age, you can’t unsee it. You can’t unsee how it plays out in your workplace, community, and city. You can’t ignore how it permeates the politics, policies, and laws we see our local and federal politicians and lawmakers weaponize daily. To know of white supremacy and the generational harm it has caused, even if your understanding is in its infancy, and to still consider it not to be “that dangerous” or not a danger at all? That’s not ignorance.

That’s a choice.

If you are white and you see harm being done to non-white people, to white people, at the hands of white supremacist ideologies, and you understand that these ideologies exist and have existed for generations? There’s no way you can reverse unseeing it and acting like it’s not happening?

That’s a choice, regardless of the generational trauma your white ancestors have passed on to you.

If you are a member of the Global Majority and you witness harm being done to non-white people at the hands of white supremacist ideologies, and you understand that these ideologies exist and have existed for generations? There’s no way you can reverse unseeing it, especially if you’ve been on the receiving end of white supremacy’s blade or watched someone with your skin tone be hurt or hurt someone who looks like you. Acting like it’s not happening to others? Gaslighting yourself?

That’s a choice, even if that choice is prompted by current and generational trauma that has been passed on to you, having a hand in you passing harm on to others.

You get to choose if ignoring the white supremacy running rampant around you and perpetuated by you is, in your opinion, in your best interest. I will not add quotations to that last part because that is your choice. But please believe that your choices have consequences – in the present and future.

People get to choose not to be a part of your life, workplace, and the communities you live in and try to build relationships with them as a response to your choice to be a white supremacist or to openly or passively aid and abet white supremacy.

Choose wisely.

Who All Gon' Be There?: A Case For Not Working In Person If You Don't Have To

I've been doing HR "professionally" for ten years. In that time, I've seen dozens of harmful and hateful people in leadership roles in almost every industry harass, sexually harass, verbally, and physically threaten their team members. I've witnessed blatant and aggressive racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and ableism by "leaders" who always asked for "diverse" candidates to fill their high turnover departments. I've watched as these "leaders" have created unsafe work environments for people from all walks of life who didn't fit their "like me" bias box. When I have called out these "leaders" for their actions, I have sat and watched as these "leaders" have gone out of their way to make my life a living hell to force me out of what they've deemed their workplaces.

And I know I'm not the only one this has happened to in those workplaces.

I've seen those who have been harmed be forced to leave the workplaces where these dangerous "leaders" call themselves leading because the organizations refuse to hold their attackers accountable. They've all said some version of the same sentences to me on their way out of these organizations:

"I couldn't keep doing this every day, Pharoah. I'm tired. I was starting to dread Mondays. I know you tried to help me, but they're doing the same thing to you."

Most of those "leaders" still have their jobs.

If you ever wonder why so many people, if they have the privilege to, want to avoid being physically in the workplace at this point, read all of the words above and then layer them over everything that was going on in your workplace before COVID-19.

Most of those "leaders" still have their jobs.

There's a reason Black folx ask people, "Who all gon' be there?" That's to feel out if we're being asked to go to a place where we can and will be harmed. We want to know if it's going to be some nonsense poppin' off with some messy people so we can avoid the situation. At this point, if these "leaders" are still gon' be there in the physical office space?

We good.

We ALL good.

This Week's Opening Thought: July 25, 2022

TW: Discussion of hate crimes, anti-Blackness, murder, lynching.

This week’s opening thought: Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

Emmett Till should’ve been celebrating his 81st birthday today with friends and family.

But he’s not.

Instead, we’re five weeks away from the sad, traumatic 67th anniversary of his torturing and lynching at the hands of white supremacists at the behest of a white “damsel in distress.”

But, you know, according to many white people, “these things happened so long ago,” and “we [Black people] need to get over it.”

My mother is 67 years old. Does that sound like “a long time ago” to you?

Emmett Till should be having a birthday breakfast right now, possibly with his grandchildren. Maybe some pancakes with a side of hand-drawn birthday cards.

But he’s not.

In September 1955, a few months after his murder, an all-white jury found Emmett Till’s murderers not guilty. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had tortured and murdered Emmett Till, selling the story of how they did it for $4,000. That was 66 years ago.

But, you know, Black folx need to “get over it.”

Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who was the spark for the lynching and murder of Emmett Till, evidently wrote a memoir that was never published. In this memoir, Carolyn claims that SHE was a victim in all of this. She claims she pleaded with her husband and his brother, Emmett’s murderers, not to hurt Till. This is the same white woman whose accusation that Emmett Till made improper advances toward her prompted his subsequent kidnapping and murder. For decades, Carolyn declined to retract her disputed account of the events leading to Till’s murder until recently.

Carolyn has lived a long life with family and grandchildren, joy and happiness.

Carolyn is 87 years old.

Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

But, you know, Black folx need to “get over it.”

Emmett Till was lynched and murdered on August 28, 1955. We’re coming up on the 67th anniversary of his murder.

My mother is 67 years old.

Emmett was a baby when he was murdered, a 14-year-old whose whole life should’ve been ahead of him. But he’s not here today because whiteness is a persistent and present danger to Black bodies. We, as a community, as a people, never get to fully mourn our lost loves and heal our souls because we’re still being lynched and murdered 67 years after Emmett.

Emmett Till would’ve been 81 years old today.

Emmett Till should’ve been celebrating his 81st birthday today with friends and family.

But he’s not.

Switch Dat Career, Yo!

Here's your Tuesday reminder that no matter how much you're being paid, no career is worth sacrificing your soul, dignity, mental and emotional health, physical health, and happiness.

I know; there is privilege in saying that. But there's also a belief that if you feel beat down, mistreated, unheard, and drained in your career but are still expected to wear a smile and a mask hiding your hurt, then it's OK to begin thinking of how your skills transfer over to other environments and fields of work. Be willing to think about what's next, what you can do to change your circumstances, and find a career that speaks to you. Plan your exit.

You've put too much into building your career to allow these heteronormative white supremacist, ableist workplace norms and systems to take your spirit away from you. If your career choice leaves you more drained than empowered, it's more than OK to pivot. You're not alone. A recent Harris Poll found that approximately half (52%) of U.S. American employees are considering making a career change this year. 44% are already in the planning stages to make that switch.

P.S.: Note that I said a career and not a job. If a day job becomes a career? Awesome. But if it doesn't? That's awesome too. We live in a capitalist system. Make your money, darling. If it ain't draining you and it's paying your bills? Do you, boo-boo.