The Undercover Introvert

A Black Woman’s Guide to July 4th

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In 1776, a group of wealthy white men officially declared independence from a tyrannical monarchy. This collective of learned individuals stated boldly:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness.

More than 200 years later, many of us are still waiting for the full realization of this cherished ideal, our ears straining to hear freedom ringing from sea to shining sea. The great American fairy tale — that we were all in chains until the Declaration of Independence and the triumphant end of the Revolutionary War, which solidified the creation of this nation — always fails to mention that the United States was constructed to exclude most people from this pursuit of life, liberty, etcetera. Black people remained slaves. Indigenous people had no place in white society. All women were excluded, and only select white women could benefit from the power wielded by their landowning husbands or fathers. At the birth of our nation, very few people living within its borders were actually free.

And now?

I am a Black woman. I have a job I love that earns me a good living. I have a family and friends and live in a sleepy suburb along the coast. My life would have been unimaginable to the Black folks that toiled, enslaved, on plantations and in the homes of rich masters. But they are part of the American story too, integral characters that too often fade into the background. They built this country. They yearned and dreamed and pushed for freedom. They fought to bring the nation closer to what its founding documents claimed this land already was: a place where life and liberty were to be cherished above all else. A place where all men were created equal.

The relationship Black people have with this country is complicated. But we don’t learn about the depths of this complication in school. We learn that slavery happened, though we aren’t made to look closely at its abject cruelty. It was just a thing that occurred a long time ago and was absolved by Abraham Lincoln. We don’t learn that he was no great champion of Black people. We only learn about the Emancipation Proclamation, and not even that it only freed slaves in the confederate states. And after that? We aren’t taught about Reconstruction’s shivering crescendo and how, sparkling with promise that wouldn’t be rekindled until the 1960’s, it ended with abrupt finality, plunging Black folks into the dark ages of Jim Crow. All of this is glossed over as we join our teachers in leapfrogging from colonial times — the British are coming! — to the end of slavery — let freedom ring! — to the Civil Rights Movement — I have a dream, y’all! And now, here we are, living in an entirely civilized, post-racial America — we’re so great that we don’t see color anymore!

I was raised in a military family, and a fierce love of this country was the undergirding of my entire childhood. I still feel that love today, though not as pure as it was when I was a child waving a flag at airshows, because I see the object of my affection much more clearly now. This is my country, though the Founding Fathers never meant it to be mine. It is imperfect, unequal, and unwelcoming to anyone that doesn’t fit the description of the Founding Fathers themselves: white, male, rich. I’ve been told that if I don’t love this country, I should go back to Africa. I’ve been told that slavery was a long time ago and I should get over it. I’ve been told racism no longer exists in this country — BECAUSE OBAMA — and that I am the one who seems to be practicing the dark arts of reverse racism. I have watched as Black men and women are killed in the streets or in their own apartments by police officers whose sole job is to protect and serve the community. And why? Because Black people were never supposed to be members of the community. We could live in America — actually, it was compulsory — but we couldn’t be Americans. The founding documents weren’t talking about us, though the success of the nascent nation depended on us: our labor, our sweat, our tears, our babies, our blood.

Today, 244 years after an Independence Day that did not include people that looked like me, I assert my own independence, and I claim this country as mine. I stand on the backs of giants, the generations of Black folks that toiled and fought and stretched their fingers towards a freedom that still lies on the distant horizon for me, hundreds of years later. But I’m closer than they ever were, because of them, and the next generation will be closer than I am, because of me. That is America. This striving to be better, freer, more truthful about who and what we are. That is the spirit I celebrate today, and it’s what I honor in the work that I do, creating change that will make this country closer to what it claimed to be in 1776.

We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…

We aren’t there yet, not even close. But I celebrate us — those that were never supposed to be part of that so-called perfect union. I honor those that made it possible for me, a Black woman, to be sitting in my own dining room, tapping away on a computer while my dog snores beside me. The people who looked like me are mostly hidden in our history, but nothing we celebrate today would have been possible without their invisible labor, their struggle, their thirst for freedom that I still feel at the back of my own throat, an itch that never goes away. Tonight, while I watch fireworks explode in the distance, I will think of them, running towards the North with only the stars to guide them.

That is the America I celebrate.

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No Justice. No Peace. No Words.

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Words come easily for me. They always have. No matter what’s happening in my life, no matter how upset, furious, or forlorn I am, if I sit down in front of the computer or a sheet of blank paper, the words come. And there’s release in that flow of words, a siphoning off of pressure, of pent up emotion, that has comforted me since I was a young girl scribbling in my journal. This release of words makes gathering my thoughts possible. I can sharpen them into a point and then attack whatever’s ultimately upsetting me. Or I can turn them into a lullaby sweet enough to neutralize the chaos in my head and usher in blessed peace. But the last few weeks have been a struggle, y’all, and it’s been hard to find the words, to urge them out, to pin them to the page so I can start making some sense of everything that’s going on.

We watched another black man repeatedly tell police he couldn’t breathe right before he was murdered. This was after watching a black man out for an evening jog get brutally killed by white men who would have gone without punishment (and still might, ultimately) if not for sustained public outcry. Right after learning a black woman, sleeping in her own bed, was shot and killed in the middle of the night by police executing a faulty warrant. This is on top of a global pandemic that’s killing disproportionately more black people due to generations of purposefully poor healthcare infrastructure in our communities together with the racism inherent in the medical profession itself, as recently evidenced by a doctor (and elected official) asking in a public forum if black folks are getting infected at a higher rate because they just don’t wash their hands. Add to that a sprinkle of watching yet another privileged white woman call the cops on a man that had the audacity to bird watch while black in a public space. The hits just keep coming.

This last month has been trying as hell for us black folks. But, if we’re being real, it’s been a trying four centuries.

Being black in this country means constantly trying to square America’s promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with the horrors you experience in your daily life. You watch another black life taken in HD. The loss is sensationalized, and you can’t get away from it, leaving you feeling frustrated, furious, and helpless. You look at your children, and you wonder if things will ever get better, if they will know true equality in this so-called land of the free. Or will they still be learning the names of black men and women murdered by police and white vigilantes? Will they have to take to the streets, marching for justice that remains on the horizon, ever elusive? Will they be able to breathe? Or will the country keep a knee on their necks, slowly suffocating them as it has you?

As I poked at the stubborn words clustered in the back of my skull, trying to coax them out into the light where they could be of some use, I found myself wondering how we’re supposed to give our black children something we’ve never experienced ourselves: peace, freedom, true equality? What does that even feel like? What could it mean for their futures, their well being, if the color of their skin was no longer a liability? And how do we make sure it’s real, not the switcheroo that keeps being perpetrated on black communities from the end of the Civil War, to the crushing finale of Reconstruction, to the Civil Rights era? Two steps forward only to get shoved three steps back.

And yet, I feel hope. How can such a thing exist, in light of what’s happening? In light of what’s always happened?

There are folks marching in the streets, demanding change, accountability, and equal protection under the law. Not just the same tired lip service, but actual equality. An end to racist institutions. A true reckoning such as this country has never seen, not even when soldiers took up arms against their former fellow countrymen over the abolition of slavery.

This is different. I can feel it.

But that doesn’t mean a happy ending is waiting at the end of this nightmarish 400 year long fairy tale. It just means there’s more work to be done.

For those of us working in the advocacy and political space, the amplification of this moment feels like a resuscitation, smelling salts broken beneath our noses that get us even more focused on the path forward and the critical work ahead. We knew racism was the binding agent undergirding every aspect of American society, but it’s in sharper relief now, more visible and undeniable. Unaffected folks are suddenly seeing it — really seeing it — for the first time. Given the work I do, I find myself almost compelled to believe this will make some difference. I cup the flickering flame of hope in my hands, protecting it against high winds that would snuff it out for good.

In retrospect, maybe the words weren’t the stubborn part of this operation after all. Maybe it was me all along, burying myself into the work I find so important, the work I believe could deliver some of these sorely needed changes. Because my response to stress and turmoil has always been to keep busy, to run hard and fast, to collapse into bed at the end of the night, exhausted and unable to think of anything besides blessed sleep. Because the reality of what this country has been and currently is for black folks will crush us if we don’t keep moving, working, hustling, and pushing for change. To stop, even for a moment, is to risk obliteration beneath the weight of centuries of people, policies, and precedent, all working together to make sure anyone that looks like us never succeeds.

So I’m going to keep running in the direction of what I hope waits for us on the horizon. I’m going to keep taking this frustration, anger, sadness, and helplessness and turn it into something useful: words, actions, plans, policies. All the while, I’m going to keep Maya Angelou’s words at the front of my mind.

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

And I’m going to rise. We all are.

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On Loving Dogs and Letting Go

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Carly in her element. Lizards and squirrels beware.

A few days ago, I stood above my 14 year old rat terrier Carly as we waited on the veterinarian to come with the series of syringes that would end her life. While she looked up at me with absolute trust, completely oblivious to what was to come, I struggled to reconcile my love for her with the sense of deep betrayal I felt running parallel to that love, because I knew what was about to happen, and I had chosen it. She had no way of knowing why we’d left the house to take a short drive to the emergency vet, less than two miles away. She trusted me, because in our long history together, I’d never done anything to hurt her. But this was the best thing, I told myself repeatedly, even as I feared it might not be. She was in pain. She wasn’t going to get better. This was the right thing. The only humane option. But was it really? What if…?

But that was the end. The beginning was different. Better.

My mother had been diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. We were all living in a constant state of terror, though we never spoke of it, lest we summon some additional looming misfortune into the precarious balance of our lives. A coworker of my father’s had a rat terrier that had just given birth. We went to visit those puppies when they were several weeks old. Carly had a perfect circle on her back, and she was the runt. It was love at first sight.

Carly’s first day home.

She came home many weeks later in a cardboard box to keep her from roaming free in the car. We named her after both Carly Simon and Carly Corinthos, a character from General Hospital, my Mom’s favorite soap opera. Our shared amusement over this plucky new dog got us through the dark wilderness of my mom’s cancer treatment. I took her to obedience classes — she passed with flying colors, though she was truly an unbossed and take-no-shit kind of K9 — and had her picture taken with Santa for her first Christmas. She became the center of our small universe, and her gravitational pull was undeniable.

Carly hard at work in my home office.

In between the day she came home in that box and the day I rode in the backseat with her up to the emergency vet, her time with us running desperately short, there were many years of memories that will likely make me smile in the months to come, though they cause tears now. For the first several years of her life, you couldn’t leave a pen or pencil sitting out without her chewing it beyond recognition. She’d climb onto a side table to steal your food if you were careless enough to leave it sitting unattended, even if only for a few seconds. She used to play with empty soda bottles, chasing them around the house and growling like a tiny tasmanian devil. She was a world class hellraiser. When she had puppies herself, she was a tender, attentive mother…until she wasn’t, and then her mostly grown pups could fend for their damned selves and stay the hell out of her way, which they did, even as recently as last week.

Carly en famille with her littles: Amelie, Lilly, and Stitch.

We had a cancer scare with her last fall, but the vet was able to remove the tumor, and we breathed a sigh of relief that ultimately proved to be premature. A few weeks later, I found a lump on her opposite leg and, this time, the vet declined to operate, citing her age and the likelihood that it would cause the cancer to metastasize. But it did that anyway, and it happened much faster than any of us were prepared for.

I spent the last few weeks as Carly’s condition worsened wondering if I’d know when the time had come. In the last two weeks of her life, we had to increase her pain medication just to keep her comfortable. The tumor grew, making it harder for her to walk. She cried in the night, unable to sleep. It became too much. But when I set her next to me and rubbed her back, she would rest easily. I convinced myself that this was okay. But it wasn’t. None of it was.

At the vet, I wanted to ask if this was the right thing to do, or if we should take her home to let her live a little bit more of her life. It didn’t feel right to choose this, after so many years of nourishing and loving her, of making sure she was safe, happy, and healthy. But I couldn’t muster the words. What if they said we’d waited too long to bring her in? That she’d suffered unnecessarily because of our selfishness? What if they accused us of bringing her in too soon, of just wanting to get rid of her? It all felt right and wrong at the same time. I leaned to kiss Carly and she licked my face. It felt like I was betraying her, but also like I was doing the right thing by letting her go.

Dogs are like special guests in the running, sometimes banal drama of our lives. They play the heartwarming supporting role to our unwilling protagonist, the much needed comedic relief to our maudlin, self-centered narratives. But, eventually, they are written out of the series, and we have no choice but to soldier on, because there are still scenes as yet unwritten, though we miss their companionship, and the show is never quite the same without them.

I know that time softens the sharp edges of grief and that we’re better for having loved these silly, snuggly, loyal little creatures. But the pain of losing them changes us, and the uncertainty over their final moments can make us question ourselves long after they are gone.

Was it the right time to say goodbye? Could I have held on longer? Should I have held on longer? Why are we given such a heavy responsibility in the first place? It doesn’t seem right, that we should choose for them. Who the hell are we, in the grand scheme of things?

Fourteen years is a long time to love someone. But it’s also the blink of an eye.

I said goodbye to my sweet, sassy Carly. I held her until it was over. I told her I loved her, and that I was sorry. In the end, just as in the beginning, we were together.

Goodbye, Carly Barly. Rest easy.

Quarantine Diary: I haven’t Worn Real Pants in 5 Weeks

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I’m not leaving the house much anymore, so figured I’d start a blog series to share updates of my oh-so-interesting-life-in-quarantine. My (lack of) exploits, thoughts, struggles, and, most importantly, snack choices. What better way to be alone, together than to provide these in depth peeks into my life that no one asked for!

Full disclosure: as an introvert, much of my regular life mirrors what would strictly be defined as quarantine conditions. My ideal day involves rising early, going for a run, listening to a podcast until I sit down at my computer to read articles while drinking several cups of coffee, having a small lunch while researching or doing some work in complete silence (my dog lightly snoring in her fluffy bed positioned within petting distance of my desk). Once I’m finished working for the evening and the end of my ideal day creeps nearer on sleepy feet, I have something delicious to eat for dinner, read or watch TV for the remainder of the night, and then hop into bed with my aforementioned snuggly dog. Did you notice that my ideal day involves never speaking to another human being? Yeah. Introverts did social distancing waaaaaaay before it went (involuntarily) mainstream.

To kick off this first post in the Quarantine Diary series, I want to take you through a list of the things I’m no longer doing in this crazy, upside down, COVID-19 infected world:

Wearing underwear

If we’re going to get to know each other, I believe we should dive right in. No dipping your toes into the water around here. I’m shoving you straight into the middle of Lake TMI…

For background, I worked remotely before it was compulsory, and after my morning shower, I’d plop myself down in my office chair dressed in a t-shirt and sweatpants or ratty shorts and get to work. Admittedly, my habit was to go without underwear while working in my home office (because it’s constricting and stupid) and only put on a pair if I had to leave the comfort of my house to attend an event or meeting, which was most days of the week. But now I’m no longer leaving the house for work because all events and meetings have been canceled for the duration. So, naturally, I canceled underwear too.

I’ve seen plenty of women posting about giving their bras the middle finger during this crisis, and I applaud their collective enthusiasm. My personal preference is to wear a sports bra when working, but that’s how I’m most comfortable. To the ladies that have left all undergarments in the rearview, I salute you agents of unmitigated chaos! Give it a few weeks and I might be right there with you. Perhaps we can have a modern day bra burning in our backyards alone, together.

Putting on big girl clothes

It’s pretty much glorified pajamas over here all day, every damned day. I haven’t worn something that wasn’t crafted from stretchy, expanding waist-forgiving fabric in many wonderful weeks (years?). My standard outfit involves sweatpants or loose fitting shorts, a sports bra, and tank top. This outfit doesn’t change for Zoom meetings where I’m expected to turn on my camera. My secret: not giving a shit what I look like. It’s really great. You should try it. Pro tip: point the camera so it only shows from the top of your shoulders up. No one will be the wiser.

Shaving my legs

Ain’t nobody got time for this kind of negativity in their quarantine daily life. And since I’m neither leaving the house nor putting on the aforementioned big girl clothing, I really don’t see the need to shave my legs.

TBH, I’m becoming less presentable by the day and I couldn’t give fewer fucks. I have no idea how any of us are going to go back to the way things were when somewhat normal patterns of life resume. Once you’ve flown from the constricting, yet gilded cage of gendered standards of hygiene, how do you go back again? And, more importantly, will we even want to?

Driving my car

I run a statewide organization, mostly from my home office. But I travel my enormous state quite often for work, meaning I put some serious miles on the old sensible four door sedan. I actually don’t mind driving. It gives me some quiet time untethered from my computer and phone to center myself while I listen to the week’s podcasts. But I sure as hell don’t miss negotiating the shitty traffic in South Florida, Orlando, and Tampa. I don’t miss paying tolls either, or filling up with gas, or paying for a tire that blew out on one of our terrible highways. Unfortunately, despite my car sitting mostly unused in the driveway (save for biweekly grocery store runs), that loan payment is still spirited out of my account at the beginning of every month.

Acknowledging the existence of time

I think we can all agree that time is canceled. It just doesn’t exist anymore, at least not the way it used to. And, even if it did, we’ve moved beyond our childish dependence on it. If we must, we can still have the generic catchalls of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, but when we start trying to get all fancy by naming days of the week or what month it is, things go to hell in a hurry. Let’s stop pretending that March only lasted 31 days when we know damned well it was at least 125. And April is shaping up to be at least double that…

Working remotely only accelerates this gradual softening of time. When your job can be done at home, it means your work day never has to end. Ever. You can continue working late into the night, at the crack of dawn, during the weekend, or on holidays. It’s great! Now the days blend together, creeping past with painful slowness while simultaneously racing through your fingers. I swear it’s been at least 3 years since we started this social distancing stuff. But it’s also only been 15 minutes.

Here’s my promise to you, captive quarantine audience: as long as sheltering in place is our reality, you can expect moderately regular posts about the weird, wonderful, and banal things going on at Chez Moi. Remember all the beautiful letters and journals produced during other trying times in our history, like World War II or the Great Depression? Well, these posts won’t be that. I’ll mostly be talking about my snacking habits and dropping a cascade of F bombs. But if it helps get you through another 75 hour day, I’ll consider that a win.

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So You’ve Been Called Out: A White Person’s Guide to Doing Better

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As someone who writes and talks about race, racism, and white supremacy a lot, I’m used to pushback whenever I point out our racist institutions or racist behavior in individuals. And as a black woman working in mostly progressive spaces, I’m also used to the constant stream of microaggression and casual racism within our ranks. Occasionally, the racism isn’t so casual at all, but those instances are somewhat rare. What’s not rare is the automatic response whenever I or another person of color dares to point out racist behavior in some of the white folks dwelling in these so-called progressive spaces. A torrent of defensiveness is unleashed at the mere suggestion that the white person in question needs to correct their conduct. This reaction is almost always amplified to outrageous levels because, on the whole, progressives believe themselves to be completely ‘woke’. Anything that puts that wokeness in jeopardy is met with brutal defensiveness.

And because this defensiveness is a constant, I’ve come to know it pretty damned well. It’s the kind of thing that never travels alone. It always arrives in the company of several tried and true excuses for why the behavior or comments weren’t problematic at all. These excuses are so common, so often used, so seemingly set in tired, frustrating stone, that you can set a clock by them.

Suffice to say, I’ve heard each and every one of these excuses more times than I can count, and they’re always brandished by self-identified allies taken fully aback by an uppity negro questioning their solidarity with black and brown folks. So, I figured, why not review them one by one? And, while we’re busy reviewing them, let’s also outline in detail why they’re complete and utter bullshit.

That’s Not What I said!!

Yes, the double exclamation point is absolutely necessary. TBH, I could’ve added upwards of three more. This gem of a go-to response also doubles as a great example of gaslighting, wherein the white person tells the black person that what she heard with her own ears (or read with her own eyes) just isn’t true. It didn’t happen that way. She has to be mistaken. Of course, she’s not mistaken, and this plaintive denial only makes a bad situation worse. That’s not what I said usually pairs well with you’re twisting my words, why are you lying?, and why are you trying to make me look bad?!

I Have Black and/or Brown Friends

There’s no piece of evidence more convincing to a defensive white person newly called out for making a racist comment than a conveniently leveraged roster of nameless, faceless black and brown ‘friends’. These alleged best buds of color serve as a convenient barrier behind which a white person can hide from any and all accountability for problematic words and actions. It’s pretty damned gross, but it happens ALL THE TIME. Black and brown folks don’t exist to shield you from blame for whatever you just did, said, or posted online, white folks. Stop doing this.

And, furthermore, I’d like to go on record by calling bullshit on these folks having black and brown friends in the first place. More like, they’ve seen black and brown folks before. They work with them or went to school with some. That’s likely it. You can’t tell me that you have genuine, deep friendships with people of color and you see no problem with using them as proof that you couldn’t utter a racist comment.

But let’s pretend that you actually do have a black friend (again, doubtful). Just because this single black individual is allegedly fine with your bullshit doesn’t mean that I am, simply because I’m also black. You do understand that’s not how this works, right? I would never expect you to act the same as another white acquaintance because you’re white too. Thinking all black people act essentially the same is part of the problem, as well as further evidence of the impossibility of you having genuine friendships with black people.

You Don’t Know My Heart

This tired excuse is usually either shouted or accompanied by tears. If typed in response to a post or comment, it comes ready with some exclamation points, is in all caps, or both. The translation for this excuse is: forget what I just said or did to you; let’s focus on who I’d like folks to think I am. Because that’s the long and short of all this defensiveness. No matter who you are, getting called out on your inappropriate behavior is uncomfortable. So is knowing that you did or said something that hurt people. I get it. We all like to think we’re good people, and many of us actually are. I truly believe that. But every single one of us was raised in a society that was built on a foundation of racism and white supremacy. Some racist shit is going to come out of your mouths, white folks, often without you realizing why it’s problematic.

If you’re called out on it, instead of taking that as a brutal indictment of your character, understand it for what it really is: an invitation for you to be better. Personal growth is something that shouldn’t stop for any of us as long as we’re alive. Don’t you want to be better tomorrow than you are today? I sure as hell do. And if I’m doing or saying something homophobic, racist, ableist, Islamophobic, transphobic, or antisemitic, I want people to call me on it. Immediately. Why would anyone want anything different?

Everyone Knows I’m Not a Racist

I just had a white woman tell me this the other day. I laughed out loud, of course, but it also made me wonder, aren’t I part of the ‘everyone’ to which you speak? Very telling. I guess you meant every white person knows you’re not racist. But I digress…

This sounds like something Donald Trump would say, TBH. And can we all agree that if you’re sputtering excuses that make you sound like Trump, there’s a problem? Allyship isn’t a state of being. It’s a journey. And the work is never done. You don’t reach a state of ‘genuine ally’ that, once attained, means you can’t behave in an ignorant, hurtful manner. Don’t brandish your DIY ally badge at me like it wipes away the impact of your terrible behavior. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: you don’t get to announce to marginalized communities that you’re their ally. That’s something that gets said about you. Like coolness. Loudly proclaiming yourself cool just means you’re not cool at all. Only calling yourself cool doesn’t hurt anyone, but calling yourself an ally while refusing to listen to POCs when they point out your hurtful behavior actually is causing harm. And following that up by using the blunt end of your defensiveness as a weapon against said POC only multiplies the damage done.

I’m Fighting For You and You’re Just Being Divisive

Calling a black person divisive is a white person’s best chance at quickly ending a conversation that could be damaging to their self-image. Because defensiveness is what happens when the idea of who we are comes face to face with the reality of who we show up as in the world. When someone calls you out for racist comments or behavior, they are implicitly pointing out the gap between who you say you are and who you show yourself to be in your day to day life.

It’s always struck me as odd that the pointing out of racism is considered more divisive to some white folks than the racism itself. But, that’s the situation in which black folks and other POCs find themselves in this country. That’s bad enough, but it’s also the situation in which we find ourselves in progressive spaces and movements. And, if we point it out, woe be to divisive, ungrateful, angry, troublemaking us.

Just because you’ve never been called out before doesn’t mean you’re good to go. Since the situation so often turns nuclear when we point out racist behavior, many POCs don’t even bother to bring it up. Sometimes, it’s just easier to put it behind us and get on with our day, especially since much of the fallout usually ends up burning us. If a POC actually calls you out, keep that in mind. She probably dealt with many dozens of microaggressions before she finally broke and said something to you. She probably calculated the pros and cons using the same automatic equations POCs know all too well. Because, most of the time, it’s just not fucking worth the trouble, no matter how unfairly we’re treated.

I Don’t Even See Color

I wish I had a couple dollars for every time a white person has told me this. I’d have a fuckton of dollars. But, instead, I just have enough pent up frustration to power another thousand articles like this one.

White folks, we all see color. It’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise. What’s more, I want you to see me as black. I just don’t want you to lose your damn mind and treat me like a second class citizen solely based on that blackness. And, for the record, that’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. wanted too, despite your carefully curated understanding of his I Have a Dream speech. The Promised Land had nothing to do with being unable to see racial differences. That’s just ridiculous and lazy. It’s about treating each other the way we hope to be treated: with fairness and respect. It’s about equality, accessibility, and inclusivity in all facets of American life.

The problem isn’t that I’m black and you’re white. The problem is that we live in a society designed to benefit you because of your whiteness and oppress me because of my blackness. You didn’t have anything to do with how that system was constructed, but any racist attitudes and behavior uphold that system instead of tearing it down. Don’t you want to stop upholding that unfair, oppressive system? If so, think of being called out as a blessing. It opens a door to a better way of showing up in this world. It leads to personal growth. And once you walk through that door, you can turn to help others through it as well. Or you can ride away from that opportunity on a tidal wave of your own self righteous defensiveness, which helps no one, least of all you.

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