On Resilience, Privilege, Catchphrases, and Affirmations

If you view resilience as something you can quantify as a "side quest" achievement that can be yours if you "work hard" and "dedicate yourself" to cultivating it, then you need to take a moment to acknowledge that you have led a privileged life.

A whole lot of us are resilient because we had no choice.

For many of us, it's about being resilient or perishing. Many of us come from lineages and ancestries that had to be resilient in the face of overwhelming oppression, racism, colonialism, elitism, classism, and white supremacy. Many of us carry the weight of our ancestors in our bodies while we navigate a world still using the same tools to oppress our communities 300+ years later. Many have identities that put us at odds with societal "norms" when all we want to do is live and thrive. Many of us tap into our resiliency daily because it's either fight or die.

There's no in-between.

If you're able to view resilience as a catchphrase, a watered-down yoga affirmation from your "guru" of pallor, or a "workplace value" for your company that you espouse to new hires with glee and gusto, you have no idea how privileged you are.

But hey, at least it looks "awesome" on that Etsy motivational poster you've got up in your house or cubicle, right?

On Cis Men and Choices

As a cis man, I want to be clear that cis men are fed a lot of patriarchal, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and ableist nonsense as they grow up and go into the world. It's modeled to them by men in their families and communities and made into "guidelines" for what a "real man" is. Cis men are inundated with paper-thin role models and horrible advice that diminishes their identities and worth.

But none of that is an excuse for any cis man to be a bag of crap.

Cis men can do better.

I grew up in the 80's. Toxic, violent masculinity was everywhere. I grew up with the same buckets of filtered nonsense, and I don't go around harming folx and spouting off "real men" rhetoric in every space I find. I don't make it my life mission to belittle others to assert my masculinity. I don't look the other way when cis men harm other people and say things like, "Boys will be boys," or call people derogatory phrases if they aren't "tough enough."

At some point, we have to acknowledge that you can have trauma and need to unlearn things, but neither excuses male toxicity and violence.

Cis men can do better. But cis men have to choose to do better, to be better, and be vulnerable enough to admit they have much work to choose to engage in to be better.

Cis men can do better.

Many choose not to.

Emphasis on choice.

This Week's Opening Thought: June 10, 2024

This week's opening thought: It's wild to me how we constantly tell people to do work they love or are passionate about while consciously and unconsciously ignoring the privilege of finding work that feeds your soul and allows you to be human and vulnerable in community with others while making a wage that will enable you to break generational chains of poverty. We never get in the weeds and talk about how little the work of serving others pays and how much weight it puts on the brains and bodies of those doing it. Yet, those of us doing the work are stuck in co-dependence cycles because many of us have been the people who needed help at some point in our lives and feel driven to "pay it forward" now that our circumstances are somewhat different while not earning enough income to retire before our bodies force us to.

And we're doing all of this while swimming upstream in a society driven by white supremacy and forced individualism intended to halt and stymie collective liberation.

Oof.

It's hard out here, y'all.

On Byron, Jim Crow, and Identities

To all the Black people married to or in long-term relationships with people of pallor, especially Black men, I offer a piece of advice: never love any person or any concept of power and privilege more than you love your people and your identities.

I’m married to a person of pallor. We've been together for almost 16 years. I love her deeply. She is arguably my favorite person in the world. But I could never love her if it was at the behest of my blackness. I could never be with her if our relationship were built on distorting the historical oppression of my people to keep her comfortable with my existence. I have never had to minimize or suppress myself for her. I have watched her learn, unlearn, grow, and stand up against hatred, bigotry, and anti-blackness. That's what any relationship with a person of pallor should be if you're a Black person living in white supremacy.

Any other form of relationship with whiteness poses you and yours a clear and present danger.

Contrary to “popular belief” (”popular belief” meaning melanated folx who seek to curry favor within white supremacist ideology), let me tell you that there are no perks you'll receive from oppressing your people and yourself for the oppressors. The oppressors will never truly accept all of you. They will offer you no safety, defense, power, or privilege in exchange for your services. They will discard you when you no longer serve their purposes and no longer help them look acceptable and community-minded. That's not just speculation - that is history. Undistorted. Clear. Easy to see, established patterns of history with over 400 years of precedents.

To my Black people, I don’t know what self-hatred and generational trauma you carry in your bodies, but I wish you peace, healing, and a better connection with the value of who you are and what your people truly represent. I wish for you to find a love that doesn't have to be tethered to your identities but respects and uplifts them. Love who you love, but always love you and yours first.

Because when you're done acting like a rodent with a built-in bandit mask and the oppressors discard yo’ ass because you no longer serve a purpose, there ain't gonna be no one there who looks like you to help you get back home.

Pepperidge Farms remembers.

[Image description: a picture of U.S. State Representative Byron Donalds speaking to a crowd.]

Image description: a picture of U.S. State Representative Byron Donalds speaking to a crowd.

When You're Here, You're Family? Nah, I'm Tight.

Here’s your Thursday reminder to not pledge your devotion to your employer. Keep that sh— transactional. Please don’t get your feelings all up in it. You can care about your work, but do not buy into being a “company man/woman/person.”

No matter what they say, they do not care about you the way you care about your work or the people you serve.

Don’t let them hit you with the Dominic Toretto monologues and Olive Garden catchphrases to suck you in with that “work family” jibba-jabba.

You deserve better than anything they can ever offer you.

Look at how they treat your colleagues. Look at how they talk about the people you serve.

Do you think they deserve your unwavering allegiance?

[Image description: an exterior shot of an Olive Garden restaurant.]

Image description: an exterior shot of an Olive Garden restaurant.