When you police us.

When you police us, you remind us of where you think our place is. 

When you police us, you remind us of what you think our worth is. 

When you police us, you remind us of how you see us. 

When you police us, you remind us that our lives mean absolutely nothing to you. 

I belong to a group on Facebook that is committed to advocacy work. It’s a group of alumni from an organization that I worked for in my early twenties and in the group description it says that we’re committed to “racial equity, with a primary focus on Black lives.” I joined this specific group after a much needed break from all things related to the organization. The break was driven by my exhaustion following the murder of George Floyd and the countless prejudiced and racist comments that emerged on Facebook from the larger alumni body in the main alumni group.

When I was invited to the new page and after I read the description, I found myself excited about the opportunity to participate in this space. A space committed to equity. A space where tough conversations could be had safely. A place where I wouldn’t need to convince someone that Black Lives Matter was an important/necessary movement. A place where I wouldn’t have to do the emotional labor of convincing someone that Black people have a valid reason to not have positive or necessarily warm feelings for cops. A place where I wouldn’t have to engage with someone who thinks that Black death is an interesting topic of debate, instead of something that directly impacts my life. (All of these are conversations that occurred on the main alumni page, hence my exhaustion)

Things were going well until this week. I noticed a comment that felt a little prickly to me. I engaged with the person in an open and thoughtful way and invited them into a space of learning. They apologized for the way their comment came across but overall dug their heels into their position. After repeatedly inviting her into a place of learning and having her gaslight me, it got to the point where she needed to be called out. In response to me, very clearly, showing her how her comments were rooted in racism and classism, she reported my comments to FB and my comment was removed. 

Her responses, which included harmful comments about Black people, people who are poor, and people who are undocumented were left, untouched. 

When I got the notification that my comment had been removed for “harassment and bullying,” I was so angry that I started to cry. I don’t think white people understand how exhausting it is being a Black person in white spaces. It’s exhausting having to appear happy and upbeat so that you don’t call us “aggressive” or “angry.” It’s exhausting fielding questions about our hair and culture like you don’t know how to use Google. It’s exhausting to have to muster up the energy to address something racist that you said. It’s exhausting to think about all of the potential responses that we might get and the ways you may retaliate against us. It’s exhausting to have to deal with the gaslighting that often follows when we’re told “it’s not that big of a deal,” or “You might not feel safe here, but you are.”

It is wholly exhausting and honestly, rarely refreshing.

To add insult to injury moderate white people, to borrow from Dr. King, you often pretend like you’re interested in growing. You lie to us and to yourself and say that you want to do the work. You put yourself in situations where we (Black people) have been invited to open up and fully share our truths and call out oppression. Spaces where our guards are down because we think we’re safe. You act like you too are a safe person committed to doing what is necessary...but that’s not true. You’re “safe” until someone shines a light on your prejudice and then you’re not. You flip like a switch and you become someone who wants to be vindicated. Someone who is willing to weaponize their privilege in order to feel better, no matter the cost.

And y’all think we’re the dangerous ones? When you’re the ones that police us constantly, in all of the spaces that we occupy. You’re the ones that refuse to let go of your systems of oppression. You’re the ones that chase us down and shoot us. You’re the ones that refuse to let us live.

I know why that white lady reported my comment. She did it because I made her uncomfortable and she wanted to remind me of where she thinks my place is. She thinks my place is below her. She thinks my place is somewhere where I can be seen and included in the diversity shots but not heard. Somewhere where I can provide free labor and free resources but not where I can address the very real and dangerous belief systems present. Somewhere I’m told to contribute but when I voice very real concerns and how interactions impact me, I’m told to “chill.” She wanted to remind me that she, as a white woman in America, is the one that holds the power and if necessary she’ll use it to keep me in check.

When you police us, you remind us of how unhinged you are.

When you police us, you remind us of how unpredictable you are.

When you police us, you remind us of how dangerous you are.

When you police us, you remind us that our lives mean absolutely nothing to you.

When you police us, you remind us that you’re racist, like we needed the reminder…. It’s impossible to forget.

-N

Creating Onramps and Inviting In.

Before Patrick and I left Denver, we attended an event at Denver University. It was one of many talks in a collection called Catalyst Series for Social Justice. The main speaker was an activist from Baltimore named DeRay Mckesson. DeRay said a lot of things that impacted me but there was one comment he made that stuck. DeRay said, “we don’t all enter conversations at the same point or level, so sometimes you have to create onramps for people.”

Creating onramps for people…what a concept.  It’s something that I think about often. I used to think and journal about it daily. How do we create onramps? It’s difficult and takes time and practice. It requires that you see the other person’s point of view and where they are in their learning. I think it requires love and patience and grace. It demands that you step outside of yourself and your feelings in order to serve the relationship.

I have not mastered the art of creating onramps but I do think that I have reached a level of proficiency. To me, creating onramps means disagreeing with people well and respectfully. Lovingly sharing information and pointing out wrong doings. It’s about prioritizing the relationship while still valuing truth and your own mental and emotional well-being.

I want to be clear that I’m not talking about engaging with acquaintances. This is not a toolkit for how to deal with some random dude online that says racist and hurtful things. I’m talking about the people in our lives that we want to continue to be in our lives. Our friends and relatives. People that we love and cherish. People who we can trust. People who love us and want the best for us and yet at times, say and do things that hurt and disappoint us. So, when that happens how should we respond?

If someone I love posts something that bothers me, feels dismissive of my feelings or is even racist, the first thing I do before I message them is check my intentions. I do that by asking myself a series of questions. Why am I messaging them? What do I hope to gain from this interaction? What exactly did they say or do that bothers me? Was their comment actually racist or did it just offend me? Am I in the right frame of mind to have a thoughtful discussion?

It’s important for me that I’m able to formulate answers to those questions. If my intentions are not aligned with the goal of creating onramps and inviting them INTO a conversation, then I do not engage. I do this for the sake of the relationship. I do not want to say something from a place of anger and pain that blocks learning and progress, even if that anger and pain is warranted.

Once I’ve checked my intentions and find them to be aligned with my values, I take a moment to outline what happened and identify why it’s problematic. In order to do this, I again ask myself a series of questions. What did they say? Why is it dangerous? Why was it hurtful to me? How could this be hurtful to others? How does that belief system or rhetoric connect to bigger systemic issues?

I like to believe that when our friends and family say or post hurtful things, that it’s not intentional. I have to believe in good intent even when the outcome is painful. So, when I’m answering these questions, I’m attempting to meet them where they are and to draw a line for them. A line from what they said to where it landed.

This takes a lot of mental and emotional work. Which is why I don’t do it for everybody. When a random person that I met in college says something crazy online, even if I considered them to be a friend, I delete them. That might sound extreme, maybe it is extreme but for me it’s necessary. It takes so much energy and space to engage in these conversations that I make it a priority to do so thoughtfully and sparingly. When I count the costs, sometimes I find that it’s emotionally and mentally cheaper to just remove that person from my space then to muster up the energy to have a discussion.

Connecting what a person said to a bigger systemic issue is something I learned from Ijeoma Oluo in her book So You Want to Talk About Race. The idea is to show them how their comments can have far reaching impacts. The words that we say, especially ones that perpetuate racist and prejudice stereotypes, have power. When someone makes a joke about a Black woman being aggressive because she advocated for herself, it’s not just problematic, it’s harmful.

Those kinds of stereotypes when believed by a supervisor can lead to a person getting written up or even fired. If I can’t speak up without someone calling me aggressive, confrontational or a threat, that can lead to me internalizing that belief and advocating for myself less. Which can lead to me potentially enduring abusive situations because of fear of being labeled and stereotyped.

When we show the people in our lives how their beliefs and their comments cause real harm, I believe it humanizes the issue for them. It goes from being just a “joke”, or just a “comment”, to being something that is hurting their loved ones. So that’s why I make it plain and clear and outline the pain that has been caused and how it connects to a bigger issue.

Once I have checked my intentions, outlined what happened and identify why it’s problematic the last thing that I do before reaching out is set a goal. I set a goal so that I can have a north star to guide me through the conversation. Something to navigate towards, and direct me so that I don’t get too sidetracked and end up defeating the purpose.

I center the goal on aspects of the conversation that I can control. For example a goal may be “to clearly communicate how their comment perpetuates racist stereotypes.” It’s a goal that is simple, clear and easy to follow. The goal is also realistic. I stray away from creating goals like “to make sure they never say or post anything harmful again.” A goal like that not only centers the response of the person I’m engaging but it leaves no room for mistakes. Trying to go from 0-100 can lead to resentment and broken relationships. We’re human and often change takes time, give them and yourself grace by making sure your goal is simple and realistic.

To recap, before I engage in prickly conversations with the people I love, I check my intentions and make sure they align with my core values of creating onramps and inviting people INTO a space of learning. Next, I outline what happened and identify why it’s problematic making sure to tie the stereotype to a larger systemic issue. Lastly, I create a goal for the conversation and use that as my north star to guide the discussion.

If it seems like a lot of work, that’s because it is. I think that anything as important as addressing harmful behavior and rhetoric in our inner circles, is bound to be time consuming but what other choice do we have? Ignore it and hope someone else addresses it? Act like it never happened and continue in ignorance? I think not. I’ll work on holding my people accountable and inviting them into a space of growth and learning and I ask that you do the same with yours.

I hope that this post is helpful for you as you navigate tough conversations with the people that you love. I’m rooting for you!

Until next time,

XOXO - N

I Am Not Your Negro.

“What white people have to do is try and find out in their own hearts why it is necessary to have a ‘nigger’ in the first place, because I am not a nigger. I’m a man. But if you think I’m a nigger, it means you need it.” – James Baldwin

Have you read James Baldwin? He was a fascinating human and his writing is deep and vast and affirming and chilling. Baldwin’s work makes me feel seen and challenged and invited into a space of evaluation and movement. I imagine James Baldwin as an author that you can only read if you’re actually interested in movement. Whether it’s his fiction or non-fiction you cannot read Baldwin and be stagnant. His work is work of contemplation and self-evaluation and he was critical of our country in a way that still, after all this time, is relevant.

Patrick and I watched ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ the other day. It’s a powerful documentary. To me, James Baldwin always appears heavy on the screen. His shoulders though pushed back and not hunched forward, seem down. Heavy from the weight of systemic racism and oppression. Heavy from the weight of outliving his activist friends (Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers). The weight of needing to leave the country and live in Paris in order to write in peace, without the looming demon of racism over his head.

Oh, how heavy the burden of hate is. Not the hate that we as the marginalized populations carry in our hearts but rather the hate of the oppressors. The hate of the racists. The weight of the hate, that I imagine he felt, as he navigated this world as a Black American man.

The weight of white people threatening his life. The weight of his brothers in the movement being shot dead. The weight of scholars wanting to have academic debates with him about something that was so much more than just a philosophical topic but rather his everyday life. I think he carried that burden and by discussing and writing about racism he wasn’t just trying to change systems but also to save himself.

Oh, the weight of being Black in America when to be Black was to be cursed.  When to be Black was to be a nigger. When to be Black was to be considered less than. To be overlooked. To be pushed around. To be lynched and raped. To be sold, enslaved and separated from your family and history.

Times have changed but they haven’t changed nearly enough or nearly fast enough. I’m no Baldwin expert but I don’t think that he would praise the progress of today. I think that as he looked around at the world that we exist in today, that his shoulders would still look heavy and his eyes still weary. That he would be tired from fighting the same fight, his entire life.

I think that he would still ask the question “why is it necessary to have a ‘nigger’ in the first place?”

I’ve only been called a nigger one time in my life. Well, only one time to my face that is. I was a teenager and it happened so fast and the encounter was so brief that you’d think that I would have forgotten it by now but of course I haven’t. It’s forever etched in my memory. I think back on that day and I wonder why that grown man called me, a kid, that word. I ponder James Baldwin’s words and I wonder why it was necessary for him in that moment that I be a nigger at all.

I imagine that the hate of racism is not only heavy for those that are oppressed but also for the oppressors. Heavier even I suppose. How awful it must be to walk around this planet with hate deeply rooted in your heart. Hate so entrenched in your being that you see a child, a teenager, laughing with her friends and your first thought is to roll down your window and yell “NIGGERS!”

Again, I wonder why it was necessary for him in that moment that I be a nigger at all. Because I’m not a nigger. I’m a woman. A proud, Black, Haitian American woman. I am not your negro. If you think I’m a nigger, it means you need it. But why?

I'm still crying for Tamir Rice.

[ I started writing this post three weeks ago on June 22nd. At the time, I didn’t know that I was three days away from what would have been Tamir Rice’s 18th birthday. Once the realization hit me, I stopped writing. I had to sit on this for a few weeks before I could muster up the strength to come back to it. I am excited, excited feels like the wrong word but it’s how I feel, to share this with you. I haven’t written in months. It’s feels right to break my hiatus on a topic that I’m devoting my life to. Black Lives Matter. I look forward to reading your thoughts and responses. Stay well friends. ]

My world was not radically changed when George Floyd passed away. His murder, brutal, public, dehumanizing; wasn’t a catalyst for me to participate in social justice initiatives. It didn’t open my eyes to the hidden realities of our society. It did not cause me to evaluate the words that I use, the company that I keep or the systems of oppression that infect our society.

My world changed on November, 22, 2014 when Tamir Rice was murdered by a police officer while playing in a park. I was 24 at the time and was working abroad for a global education program. I cannot recall the city or even the country that I was in. What I remember are the emotions that I felt. Emotion that still feels fresh. Emotions living under the surface waiting to bubble over seemingly renewed each morning. I remember the bile in the back of my throat and my knees getting weak. I remember feeling dizzy. I remember feeling alone. I remember not talking about it or writing in my journal about it and yet still thinking about it every day for months.

I think about Tamir Rice often. The other day I was having a water gun fight with my nephew JJ in our neighborhood. Patrick suggested we go for a walk and JJ was running ahead of us shooting us and every bush and every tree he passed with water and laughing so hard. He had so much joy on his face and it was so contagious and beautiful that it made me want to cry. Then I thought of Tamir Rice.

I thought of the cop cars that drive through our neighborhood often, using it as an access road to the other part of town. I pictured a cop car stopping and within two seconds, before I could explain that they were just toys my beautiful nephew being taken away from us. I wanted to tell him to stop running and that we needed to go home. To explain to him that it would be safer for him to play in the yard…but I didn’t. He should be allowed to play freely. I should be allowed to watch my nephew play freely without having to squash his 5-year-old joy with a conversation about racism and police brutality.

I just want my nephew to be able to play and I want to be able to play with him without thinking about him getting shot by a cop.

You think that this is just for George Floyd but I’m still crying for Tamir Rice. You think this is just about Ahmaud Arbery but we’re still grieving Emmett Till. You think this is just about justice for Breonna Taylor but we’re still fighting for Sandra Bland and the dignity and justice she deserved.

I still have lots to learn and so many books to read but in regards to being ‘woke’ or not, my eyes couldn’t be opened any wider. I’m awake and I’m never going back to sleep. Tamir Rice. I wish I didn’t know his name. I wish his name never ran across the bottom screen of the weekly news and was never printed in a newspaper. I wish he was alive. I wish after playing in the park, he went home with his sister. I wish after playing in the park with a TOY, that he was able to go have dinner with his family. He deserved that. He deserved life.

We are still crying tears for injustices of old. I haven’t even made room for the injustices of today.  Black Lives Matter.