These next few blog posts will reflect a few OF my experiences, as I have lived them. I take full accountability for these allowances and lack of boundaries that were enforced by my silence. A silence that caused harm to my people and myself. It has taken YEARS to get to this point. I acknowledge that in those moments I failed my ancestors, my community and myself. I acknowledge that I chose safety in being shushed. That I felt I was more effective keeping my head down, being present for my people during their transitions. But, God. But, grief said nope. Responsibility means speaking up and out.
“Putting harmony over justice and civility over amends is a harmful practice if we are telling people to constantly bypass defending themselves or standing against what is awry.”
Luvvie Ajayi Jones
Professional Troublemaker: The Fear Fighter Manual
What happens when the marginalized, colonized and oppressed allow white people into sacred spaces without discipline and correction. The entitlement displayed in using black women for emotional and physical labor.
While living in El Paso, I was saved from complete isolation and insanity by a Sunday routine. I would wake up my son, make a full breakfast (Southern raised, Midwest-born, so you know what it do), and we would head out to church. Church was followed with a lunch playdate for my son with friends from school, or with other church members I had grown to know. After a nap, we would head to West African Dance class. I was invited to this class by people whom I had met working in bars to make ends meet, yoga and permaculture meetings. Indigenous, Mexican, and Mestiza. Imagine having your ancestral dances taught to you by people who were barred from learning and doing their own? They snatched back their dances, and mine. These phenomenal human beings learned my rhythmic heritage on my ancestral land. And if that shit is not crazy enough, they brought in the best of the best for workshops. I was able to sit under accents that applied balm to my parched lineage isolation from Ghana, Côte D’Ivoire, Senegal, Nigeria……I cannot express what it did for my soul to have that kind of literal rest, spiritually, physically and culturally. It is only by Divine wisdom and effort to give me this reprieve. I lived in that city for almost 10 years. The last two were the most bittersweet. I was largely silent in my professional life because I was trying to survive, be validated by societal standards of adequacy, and reeling from a traumatic 3 yr divorce court battle. Shiiiiiiit, still dealing with it, tbh.
My home away from home. Grimey, Gracious and Glorious. El Paso, Texas, USA and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico
I did not know was that it was in those same spiritually grounded places, someone I would allow to see me in my transparency and use me (either consciously or unconsciously) for their own agenda and narrative. I had been under the impression and what I believed was a collective awareness of an individual’s acceptance and allowance into sacred spaces. I relied on the community’s behavior to dictate my boundaries. Little did I know that systemically this person would use my compassion to support their abuse of white privilege and agency. I would be the safe, light-skinned emotional labor they needed when they attempted to irresponsibly attain self-gratification. A self-gratification move that the other party was clear about being an issue. I prayed for them and hoped for selflessness. Thank God they were selfless in the end.
Loyalty Missionary Baptist Church, another casualty of East Austin gentrification. But, the city talks about historic preservation?
I have held space for this person as they committed petty theft. Upon their frantic call and entrance in my home, it was shared that this was not a single occurrence. Their disclosed upbringing, personal hobbies, and whom they considered community indicated that the only reason the police were not involved was because this person is white. They watched as I engaged with Austin Police Department three times in a matter of a couple of weeks, two accidents (I was rear ended) and mistaken identity for credit card theft. The shit was legit harassment. But, nope. They did not see their faults, nor was I offered any compensation or recourse for being present for them. I am sure their other “friends” do not know this, as this person called the safe, light-skinned woman.
It puts my stomach in knots knowing that this person is not only outwardly unapologetic about their appropriation, but also purely exploitative when they claim competence to act in what they believe is activism for marginalized peoples. This person calls themselves a CARE PROVIDER when they have birthed so much harm in their arrogance. This person’s exposure to birth on colonized and oppressed bodies to meet their “numbers”. This person is so assured in their agency, they felt compelled to tell a black body that their dream occupation was ridiculous. This person found me to be avoidant of my culture for desiring to live in an area that gave me immediate access to wild green space and lakes. Their concern came from a place of “being concerned with isolation from my culture”. They did not take in account that not all black folk like city life, I was a single mom on a budget, I just moved from the desert, and the infamous UT study that validated the reduction of black folk in Austin……nor that I was actually closer to Pflugerville/Georgetown…where black folk were moving due to being gentrified & redlined out of homes (this person lived in a gentrification zone in a gentrified ass house, but I am a kind, patient person, y’all). Did they have this level of concern showing their face in a black house of worship? This is what it is when your light-skinned privilege deems you safe. People either claiming to be an ally, or reaching out of misguided concern use their agency and exposure to your intimate existence to shame you and oppress your kin without rebuke. My ability to hold space and keep secrets are compounded when weaponized in their self-gratification.
Thank God for clarity and conscience. And that I didn’t tell this person ALLLLLL of my business. This is why I know that these sacred moments of transition should have those who are not only willing to put their lives on the line, but also move with sensitivity and act intentionally to not exploit us. Midwifery was historically stolen and disenfranchised first from my ancestors after birthing, breastfeeding and raising this nation. Systematically removed and incriminated by white male, God-complexed western medicine (which used black bodies to build a system which excluded those same bodies), white midwives are just as at fault and responsible for the lost of black lives. And JUST if not MORE SO, obligated to provide reparations and corrective action for their appropriation. FUCK Ina May. White midwives (and doulas) tend to have what I call “Trompe d’Oeil tolerance”…. Looks like they are for the liberated black body, until you get realllllll close, (usually alone or at someone’s transition) then you can see the eyes painted on their eyelids. Google “trompe d’oeil”…..that is legit them.
Pere Borrell del Caso’s most famous work, Escaping Criticism (1874)
We don’t need sympathizers, allies and voices to speak for us that don’t look, act, live, and carry the generational and ancestral traumas that we hold in our bodies. We don’t need someone who has treated our experiences, culture and struggle as a spectator who attempts to put us on like a new outfit over their own privilege in order to be accepted. Seriously, no care provider should be touching a single colonized and oppressed person if they do not look like them or will ensure that people are not being used as a resume filler or talking point for one’s “wokeness”. Decentering yourself means AIN’T SHIT ABOUT YOU. It is what can YOU do FOR US, WITHOUT US needing to do a damn thing. ‘Cause you the problem.
We been the solution, key, plug, seasoning in your bland ass recipe for a country, and keepers of the magic of humanity.
Maternal Mitochondrial DNA, STAND UP BIHHHHH.
Maybe parenting has made this person accountable, but I doubt it. How is it that one cannot be deemed an agent of white supremacy if they surround themselves with black and brown people, but assert their privilege when it serves them best? I am from Missouri, the “Show Me State”. I prefer my racists overt instead of covert. Overt racists can be avoided, and you know where you stand. Colorism is covert racism to those that choose not to dig deeper. But, overt to those who remain marginalized and categorized according to comfortability of the white narrative. Two COMPLETELY SEPARATE conversations need to be had in regards to colorism. One, within non-white, marginalized, colonized and oppressed peoples. Not a single Becky, Karen, Chad, Garrett present. Decolonization, for us and by us. The second should not really be a conversation, but a whole ass exposé, life course lecture series, mandatory requirement for existence for white people on colorism fuck shit and how they are and perpetuate the root cause.