I remember being silenced by someone in my mlm company who told me not to discuss politics in my post because people wouldn’t by from me. I listened (white privilege) She also shamed me for saying that I didn’t like someone because he called me a hoe. She told me it didn’t matter basically because she liked him. Oh and she was very poised in being “COLOR BLIND”
I remember a supervisor at UW comparing her experience as the only blonde in a group of brunettes in her sorority to my black experience. (White privilege)
I remember explaining to a co-worker that being Latina encompasses being Puerto Rican, Dominican etc. She got upset because we (me and my co-worker who was actually Puerto Rican) made her feel dumb. (White Fragility)
I remember a white co-worker using the N-word as she explained how she was taught that the N-word wasn’t a person of color but the way people acted. I laughed because I couldn’t believe it and it felt like I was in a different world. The white fragile co-worker came to me after and said I’m sorry she said that to you. I said well it happens often. Afterward I told her she offended me and her reply was a simple well you know I wasn’t trying to offend you. I cried on my way home. I was the only black person who worked at his school on base. It felt like the worse part of me had somehow sprung out and I didn’t know how to protect myself. I stayed up all night. Contemplating what to do. I ended up letting the principal know who went to HR but she assured me she wouldn’t get fired. I talked to HR and they gave me fluff about their initiatives which were bullshit. However, I didn’t fight. I was 8 months pregnant and I was already anxiety ridden at this point about my first born son and to add to that would be a detriment to my existence. (Racism, privilege, institutionalized racism)
These are just highlights of my life as a black woman moving through mostly white spaces. I’ve been in these spaces most of my life and I have yet to find solace. Whether it be overt or microaggresive, I am unable to fully comprehend how people walk around with so much faith in their whiteness that blackness being discussed is unfavorable. That somehow people who work with black and brown kids all day can say nigger and say I hope this doesn’t offfend you and move on.
I’ll admit most of these incidents I felt I had to apologize for being me. For being sad, silencing myself to make money, to make others feel good about their whiteness. But none of these people wake up in my reality. They are okay with being salvaged in the secrets of fault because anything else makes them feel guilty for the ancestral blood that is on their hands. That somehow your color blindness is single handedly muzzled in a new awakening! I will gladly empower myself and others to say the truth even if it means people will not make business transactions with me.
Blackness is always taught to be harmonious in order to survive. Without it we cannot move forward because non compliance means no having a job to support our families, it means being heckled by co-workers because you went to HR, it means dealing with ignorance on your job even if it hurts you, it means saying sorry to the white person who you made feel bad even though you were right, it means listening to undeniable privileges being forced on you as it somehow relates to your blackness. It means people being more concerned about Colin kneeling than about the reason he is kneeling which is why yesterday a black man died, it means being resilient even when people try to break you, it means death and even while you comply it still could mean death. It means talking to my son about how he moves in the world as a black boy and man because of how they see him. It means my husband being stared at and sometimes white people jumping when he passes by. Being black has taught me that you can’t win and even when you do somehow we still lose.
So from now on I will not be silent so you can feel comfortable. I will use my voice. I will share my thoughts even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Even if you call me the angry black woman I will tout it in strength. Your uncomfortability is not my problem.
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.- James Baldwin
P.S IF YOU ARE WHITE AND READING THIS PLEASE READ ABOUT THE HISTORY OF US. Don’t just celebrate our cultural implications AKA our music, our hair, our clothing etc. Know the truth of our history and yours too. How the colonization worked what it meant for black people, how historical racism breeds the systems that are currently in place. It is not our responsibility to teach you. If you want to know READ. Google is a your best friend.
Examples: White Fragility, I’m still here: black dignity in a world made for whiteness are just two good reads. There are more just go find them.
We have been slaves in this country longer than we’ve been free.
