I first lost myself. Though the loss was long ago, it was not until recently did I realize the threads of myself I somehow retained despite the loss.

“it is not unusual to sift through ashes and find an unburnt picture”

- Nikki Giovanni, The Women Gather

I have made a horribly consistent mistake of being accessible to people who do not consider me fully, asking for reciprocity in return for my presence. Let me be COMPLETELY honest. I only expect to be treated as a person. This mistake has always led to me giving without abandon, and being taken from without consideration. This is compounded by the fact of people feeling extremely comfortable talking to me about their lives. I guess I project a “you are you, I am me. I don’t have time to judge you” kinda vibe. I don’t know. But, I do know I am done.

“If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it. That is one of the strongest laws God ever made”

- Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

I know that I know that I am tired of protecting people who do not care for, nor protect me. They protect or care for aspects of me that reinforce who or what they are in this world. But, again that is not protecting me as a whole human. This year I will begin speaking specifically about things I have lost in the fire. The fire being this life, existing within as bell hooks’ called it “imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy”. The same fire that took her from us. The fire being the internalized and externalized oppression of colonized & racialized bodies. The fire being the medical industrial, the nonprofit industrial, academic industrial, agricultural industrial and the prison industrial complexes. Working from recent to past history, I cannot possibly contain the volume of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual labor I have done for others, knowingly and unknowingly. Labor done without compensation, acknowledgement, or the reciprocity many vehemently profess to support. How can I have read Audre, Zora, Maya, bell, Cornel, James, Assata, Angela and yet still be silent? In reading Roxane Gay’s “Not that Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture”, I just kept hearing Audre’s Sister Outsider echoing behind my own stories interlaced in that book. And the grief welled up in my soul, and spilled out onto yet another journal page, into another therapy session. I cannot continue to keep quiet. Though I will not say their names as they do not yet deserve to be named here, I will use their initial, S. S was the first significant domino to topple my self-oppression. The first scale that began to lift the layers meshwork from my “eyes”.

“Just remember that you are one of the Black women you are trying to serve. And if the work tears you apart, its doing the work of white supremacy”

-Ijeoma Oluo

My biggest lesson over the course of this pandemic is not realizing that people were taking from me in a way I cannot replace with what I built before. I have to renew and reinvent the place it once lived. And from henceforth, dialogue with me if you are in healthcare or adjacent to healthcare will involve an NDA. Because you are not instinctively going to protect my peace, and you will take from me because you wholly believe the lies of scarcity, are incapable of being reciprocal, and will not prioritize freeing yourself from the injustice that causes you to take. There is an legit pandemic of people who display/project that they care most for the liberation of Black bodies, of othered bodies and minds…but, the reality is they are clamoring for recognition for the responsibility for your revolution. Ownership with the guise of openness.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

-James Baldwin, As Much Truth As One Can Bear

In late 2019 before the US shut down, I went to a holiday party for Giving Austin Labor Support (GALS), a local nonprofit that I have served for four years. For four years I took on some of the most complex clients. For four years, I helped facilitate, educate, and speak out concerning African-American Maternal Mortality. I educated people who fully are in these streets as covert operatives dressed in the latest liberation language. I carried full percentages of total families served, took on multiple roles, fundraised, and advocated for an organization that possessed a 90% white female board + one white presenting Mesoamerican woman). Chipping the minute stipend back to the organization for the most part, until I started to get tiredt af. Yes, TIREDT. I was slowly realizing that it had become a doula mill for DONA and DTI. This was bolstered with the boldness of white birth workers eager to be present for Black birth. Boosted by the white savior complex. Bolstered by silence of the racialized bodies trying to get ahead in a world keeping us behind. Boosted behind lies of equity. Bolstered by claiming to be a part of a “community” that spoke so horribly about each other when eyes were not watching. It was time to go. I could no longer be a part of yet another organization that uses Black death, sacred spaces, and the oppressed for gain, calling it “opportunity”. But that exposé is for another day.

"You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

-Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

A holiday pizza party at Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. was kinda my last deal I wanted to attend. My partner RARELY dipped into these spaces as they heard the fury of the fuckshit. But yo, we were at a point of making clear expressions of support for each other in a way that validated the other in their endeavors. There I met a new board member, S. Quickly, she was intrigued by my partner and I, the interracial, cross-cultural pair we are. And S seemed to me, like a person truly behind GALS being better than what it had become. I met up with her at Oseyo for dinner, was fully transparent (as I am) about my life, and why I am so intentional. I worked in the jail because I am the child of the Reagan “War on Drugs”. Harm reduction is just natural to me because this place has taken so much from me. The “why” has always been more apparent than the “what”. She and I decided to be friends. My first mistake was offering friendship and not a professional collaboration.

“we cannot waste our time believing we can achieve an ideal self or community. all we can do is attempt to live well, in right relation... pursuing a social order that preserves and protects the integrity, resilience, and beauty of everyone...a commitment to generosity and mutuality.”

- Imani Perry, Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation

She easily convinced me in the midst of my lengthy corporate unemployment that I needed a career/business coach. So, desperate to not fully depend on my partner (single, independent, woman syndrome takes major deprogramming when you are in a partnership FYI), I signed up for her mentorship. I would join her for walks around Town Lake where I would wax poetic about the loss of my kid, trying to find a job, the frustration in wanting/planning a destination wedding, my goals as doula, wanting to leave GALS, starting a business that is founded on abolitionist principles…. etc., etc. I basically poured my life out to her. She surprised me after a couple of weeks that she would not be charging me for her services. How tearfully grateful I was, that this pillar of women’s health and global outreach would offer to mentor me for free. I did not realize it at the time, but she was getting far more from me than I was from her during a global pandemic and social justice uprising. I guess I gave her purpose, something to do or save. Instead of getting me a job with any of her many “connections” either from the insufficiencies of my resumé (which is not the case at all. Ya girl is constantly hit up for interviews now that my confidence ain’t lacking) or lack of opportunities, my first job after being a medical case manager for the same institution that employed her partner…..was to be a caretaker and chauffeur for her kids while she was away at surfing camp. I should have known. A place filler first, a “Mamie” before a “martyr”, always. I am great with kids because I do not bullshit them. They are inherently honest with us until we give them fear to speak lies. I cooked, chauffeured, and kicked it with said children. I did not question why someone of her socio-economic status did not hire someone else. I was desperate. I did not have the self-confidence or awareness to think I was worthy of more.

“Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect, and make everyone else deal with you the same way.”

Nikki Giovanni

Later after helping out with a launch party/showcase for her most recent endeavor, she asked me to come and work for her and the other founder, another well known white woman with social capital. Hindsight is 20/20. As the pandemic evolved through the end of #45’s term and mismanagement, there were many team meetings where S spoke adamantly about the founders not paying themselves, but paying us. The other co-founder became increasingly absent. In becoming a small business owner, I have learned that paying my employees a equitable wage for their work is an obligation, not my oration. I should not guilt trip anyone about getting work done, especially….. if they are getting work done. My business, and my ethics are on the line. If I have to tell people that I am paying them and not myself, when it is my job to grow the business……something is OFF. And, I hired people to help me place the stepping stones required to grow. Employment, collaborations and referrals should involve an exchange. There were internal conflicts bubbling under the surface between the two founders. S spoke at volume to me about the $60K she initially invested versus the $15K the other owner put in. I found the sharing of this information odd, considering that S spoke the most about needing to grow, and who she knew. She constantly talked about money and cost, but was always reluctant to do the “dirty work” of marketing/accounting etc. In business ownership, there is usually a operating partner and a silent partner. The silent partner is usually the majority investor. They had an unconventional operational structure, so again I brushed that talk aside. I have the comparison sickness that social media exacerbates and shared the layers of false realities it creates. My own grapples with the capitalist, grind and production focused nature that pervaded social media were shared. I counseled with the lessons that parenthood teaches us personally, that bleed over into our professional and public lives. Over time, it became apparent to me that there were seams of jealousy held together by a fierce seeming competition of “white women wokeness”.

“When liberal whites fail to understand how they can and/or do embody white supremacist values and beliefs even though they may not embrace racism as prejudice or domination (especially domination that involves coercive control), they cannot recognize the ways their actions support and affirm the very structure of racist domination and oppression that they wish to see eradicated.”

 - bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black

The interviews of politically active folks in the area were done by me, but I could not ask the questions I wanted to ask as to ensure the two founders were not found to be at fault for my inquiries. I had to “play the game” because it was not their lives in danger when the screens are on or off. I could not ask the abolitionist questions to Dr. Peniel Joseph about the co-opting of MLK, Jr and the demonization of Malcolm X. I could not ask about the predatory nature of the US government then versus now. I could not ask about his book in relation to Black Feminist Theory. My chest still struggles on that missed opportunity to ask someone who breathes, works, and moves in the Academic space with insane knowledge. I could not ask Delia Garza, José Garza, or Sarah Eckhardt about harm reduction, the displacement of Black people in this city, the unnecessary construction of a women’s prison, the crusade against reproductive rights, the bias/abuse/oppression of the Texas Rangers. Could not talk about the omission of the Black voice in this city and their campaigns. Could not question the assumed allegiance. I had to get my check. Or so I thought at the time. S’s answer to many of her money guilt trips were workshops. The most profitable workshop being anti-racism trainings. These were white-woman curated, white woman led, sessions that were facilitated by me, a light-skinned black woman. The content was sent two to three days before to be “evaluated/looked over/asking for suggestions” edited by a staff that were not getting paid for content creation. Two ethnic faces and voices were place holders of “anti-racist credibility”. I was not getting paid to create training content for affluent, white people reckoning with a reality check.

“There’s nothing feminist about having so many resources at your fingertips and choosing to be ignorant. Nothing empowering or enlightening in deciding that intent trumps impact. Especially when the consequences aren’t going to be experienced by you, but will instead be experienced by someone from a marginalized community.”

― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

At the same time, “a dear friend” (in her words) of S’s was conducting anti-racism trainings for the NPO that I had met S through, GALS. This training was expertly and correctly administered to rooms of largely white volunteer birth workers by a dark skinned Black woman. I learned about my own propensity to make room for white supremacy. I have had to my whole life to survive this place. EVERY SINGLE BLACK WOMAN & FEMME HAS HAD TO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. I wondered why this same person was not the one doing the training for S’s enterprise? But, riiiight. I was barely getting paid, so I knew they did not have the ability to pay that Black woman. But the voyeuristic stroll through Black art, literature, film and pain contained little if none of the Black joy we also express.

"I don’t think Blackness is something that you can define verbally with words. It’s something that you are."

- Dr. Yaba Blay, ((1)ne Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race)

or you are not. PERIOD.

I used the money I made from being employed by them to start HEART Rituals, LLC. No bank loans, consultants, web designer, accountant, marketer, personal chef, sustainable supply chain……just me. Piece by piece, little by little, slow and sure, like my ancestors did. One of the other employees made my logo. I offered to pay them, but they refused. Like how this planet builds and repairs itself. All the constant guilt trip about what S and her counterpart had to do compared to what our jobs were was a harsh, but personal look at how someone can swear they are going good, but imposing the same harm they so fiercely speak out against. I told the other racialized person that I could no longer work for white women in a capitalist hierarchy. I had to get out. Respectability politics were dictating the rewards. That is not how it is supposed to be when your boss/friend says they are about your liberation.The tea cup chime had faded. I can work with in transparent and accountable solidarity, but not for. I later learned that the counterpart left the business, and the whole brand is now under S’s full control and administration. And that the endeavor was the departed’s vision and creation. Why would someone walk away from something they dreamed up? Something they desired to grow with someone else? Why was S screaming to be the “Queen Bee”, when we need as many hives as possible? And hives or certain sizes have more than one queen. Hindsight is 20/20.

"Whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling as equal partners."

- Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

On a more personal note, while S got dental surgery, I brought nutrition to help with healing. Because that is what friends do. When their kids’ gaming drove her crazy, she reached out to me to be comforted. And I “brought her down” because that is what friends do. When she was angry about her business counterpart, she called me to listen with empathy. Because that is what friends do. I never charged a dime. Never asked for a dime. The lament about losing mutual friends between herself and the other co-founder upon their departure. No invoice. A friend of hers in India died, so I planted tulsi in the raised boxes in the front of her house to memorialize this person, and to honor her love of tea. Because that is what friends do. Her grief about her mother, deceased father, sibling dynamics…..all held space for. I held space for this person personally AND professionally. Holy shit, I was her damn doula. Her life doula. Doula’ed TF out her whole life transition from running a NGO to learning how to be present and functional locally. I got some care packages that centered her voice and agency. The only thing I got from her was a book on Afrofuturism that was on my wish list. Imagine getting a thank you card from someone that knows you are a Christian…..and it directly says on the front, what you believe is not real. Imagine getting spiritual texts by someone who does not look like you or engage your ethnicity? S moves with a license that years of humanitarian aid work, white privilege and entitlement give you. I allowed her to be her, while I could not fully be me. This is a horrible habit of mine. I tend to let people express their full selves, while stifling mine. Making my presence small, observant, and in the shadows, so others can be as big as possible. Her words concerning my compassion, and lack of pressure onto an Indigenous friend concerning the COVID-19 vaccine was met with “Rasalin, they need to get vaccinated. They are dying en masse. Refusal is ridiculous”. My rebuttal was simple. That white people have been oppressing and killing First Nations people since their arrival. Who am I to tell a people, who’s spirituality and survival is in their DNA, to alter it? I am not an Indigenous woman. How could I? I can speak to my own people, my own elders with conviction. S spoke as if neither Black nor First Nations peoples had not endured bioterrorism and medical violence. But folks continue to put her on a public pedestal, while she does private harm. Her inner circle lacks Black women for a reason. I am now acutely aware of “white moderates” as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr called them, that proclaim they are for the liberation of Black lives. A proclamation that translates as long as they can maintain their allegiance to patriarchy and capitalism. Her adherence to a scarcity mentality was palpable. But, I rationalized that she had did so much good for others. That I am not perfect. That She was not perfect. Relationships are made of two sets of imperfections. She spoke openly about loving bell hooks’ “All About Love”. But, I never dug deeper to see if she lived it. And being not perfect, but deeply investing in projecting that you are doing “the work” right is deeply harmful.

These are the minor transgressions I desensitized myself to in order to maintain a “friendship”. All the while being drained of significance.

“Suppression of our natural responses to disaster is part of the disease of our time. The refusal to acknowledge these responses causes a dangerous splitting. It divorces our mental calculations from our intuitive, emotional, and biological embeddedness in the matrix of life. That split allows us passively to acquiesce in the preparations for our own demise.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Since my son was two years old, I began making my butter cream to help combat the intensity of living in the Chihuahuan desert despite being a girl from “The Lou”. For years, my son told me that I should sell it. But, I resolved to give it as love tokens to friends and family. Capitalism has a way of taking what is from the heart, and making it easily accessible without the care it took or its inception. Fast forward summer of the first year of the pandemic, and I shared my butter cream and the bases of the formula with someone I called a “friend”as I brought them into my home,…………………. S.

When my Crown 2 Root butter cream was given to my employers, the one that brought me in to work for the business (S) suggested that I work with Folk Potions. Folk Potions made a “Wringing Salve” for her, and I used it while cleaning out the office space for vacancy. Yes, you read that right. Of all of the staff, I was the one who volunteered along with someone who served as S’s personal assistant to pack and organize the vacating of a house being used as an office. The business partner had already mentally checked out of the enterprise. But, it gave me time to look at the materials and workspace that I did not experience due to the pandemic. So, or course I saw the cases of Wringing Salve. In being a Black woman, my hair and skin have different moisture needs. I am not stating that I am anatomically different for y’all who are reading this out of being haters. Over years, I curated my butter cream to meet the required protection, lubrication and moisture I needed to be exposed to the desert elements. Over years I sourced my ingredients to be good to this floating blue ball. The salve they collaborated on was not meant for my skin, nor people like me. I voiced to them both that their collaboration sits on top of the skin, and is not well absorbed. It coated the skin, but prevented moisture absorption. This can clog pores, and prevents what the skin needs from penetrating. It did not protect or aid my skin as I cleaned and packed bathrooms, kitchens, office spaces.

“began to follow all of my thoughts and was surprised how many didn’t belong to me. And how many had threads to ancestors, relatives, strangers, even plants, elements, and animals.”

― Joy Harjo, Poet Warrior: A Memoir

I should have known something was off, when the same person that was suggested I should collaborate with began making my butter cream in the way I make it. And, it kept appearing on my social media feed. I kept dismissing it because the timing was too close and weird. I kept making excuses. One white, liberal, of the same faith woman to another, taking what I have made for over 15 years in the comfort and care of my home. Appropriation with affluenza. I tried my absolute best to convince myself that this is coincidence, and that I was just seeing things. But as this imitator created 7 differently scented versions of my butter cream, with the same bases. From my Crown 2 Root butter cream to SEVEN different scents…..The only person having been in my house to see ingredients is the suggestive boss……S. It was S that suggested I list some of the ingredients on my website. I thought I was legit crazy when social media made it clear that I was not crazy. That my intuition was indeed on point. The thing about people, specifically white people who claim to be witches….is that those people fail to realize is that they were still treated like humans. An infamous northeastern trial cannot erase racial hierarchy, and the appropriation of Indigenous knowledge. A woman who can shed her various labels as she pleased, was selling something that was not of her own creation, using my ancestral bases, selling my ancestors’ knowledge as if she was the inspired genius all along. And, she offers the imitation seasonally because it creates “stability concerns” for year round use for their gentrifying clientele. The same person gentrifying native land for capitalism. This is the same person who popped up in my business feed not to long ago doing a “mutual aid” contribution with S. How is it mutual aid when you are using a capitalist framework to give a minority percentage to a population? “Capitalism is the sea we swim in” was something S wrote concerning the campaign, and I was sick to my stomach. I was sick in realizing that something I made out of care, out of love…..was taken and now a bootleg version is being sold under the guise of “progress”. Mutual Aid wrapped in co-opted, white savior tactics. They are not co-conspirators in liberation. They are the captors baiting people with captives. Block, aint blessing them, delete. But, keep receipts.

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house"

—Audre Lorde

This was the tipping point for a retrospective of the way that I give was not healthy for me.

The “Fuck this shit, Imma chose me” Point

This “humanity-minded” person then proceeded to publically destroy my trust in them, by posting a private message, and financial contribution via Venmo to social media. Let me also relay that the explanation in the publically shared on Instagram screenshot stated “Find yourself friends who know you do emotional living for a living and so they pay you when you help them.” Let me clarify, I paid S for (I asked if they had time for and was reassured was) a “business coaching” session. In the paid coaching session, which S confirmed my instincts of billing GALS for my physical, mental AND emotional labor for a client during a pandemic and climate disaster. And S did listen as I made clear that I was dissolving the professional and personal relationship with the NPO’s Executive Director. S took the liberty to post a PRIVATE, PROFESSIONAL CONTRIBUTION STATING THAT SHE WAS GETTING PAID FOR DOING EMOTIONAL LABOR….FOR A BLACK WOMAN. I also should clarify that I only called S once in regards to a dire personal emergency. And she could not give any advice to me. The same person who claims to have saved lives and livelihoods, intervene in war zones….. could not help, nor support a Black woman navigate profound fear and loss. This same person spoke forcefully about what Indigenous nations need to do concerning vaccination, who always spoke of people as their race, and not the humanity qualities first, who sends out newsletter with bell hooks’ words from All About Love, who talked about her hosted weekly Sabbath meeting patrons being stingy with money…Those same people were confused on if her endeavor was a NPO or a for profit business. She is same person who wrote about being reckless in a Chinese restaurant for a holiday meal. The same person who in that paid coaching session just simply confirmed my instincts of billing the NPO for my physical, mental AND emotional labor during a pandemic and climate disaster……..is the same person that was apparently ingesting books and essays on Black pain.…The same person who said they were attempting to “celebrate me”. I still do not read how that was celebrating me. Nothing in that “gesture” said look at my friend. It said “Look at me. Getting paid for doing the work.” Name me a Black woman in this city who is getting paid her equitable due from doing exactly that all day, every damn day?

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

— Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love

I realized at that moment, the strings were being pulled by someone who does not have Black women in their inner circle, who only recently began engaging Black women, Black art, and Black America. I thought from her first marriage she had some kind of awareness of the complexities of Black America. S spoke in volumes about a popular Instagram birthworker, ShiShi Rose, her mental health, and her journey as a new mother during a pandemic …..and social justice uprising, as if S was a part of ShiShi’s number ones……..complete privilege and without abandon. Apparently, all of that ingesting did not lead to emotional processing, nor accountability. Now, the nature of her relationships with others, I cannot speak on. But, I do have to say that she has a way of consuming people, and then blaming the failure to maintain connection on the exiting party. And a way of putting racialized minds and bodies against each other for her own gain. A way of placing them in harm’s way, for gaslighting as if their pain was an auction or art gallery opening by her curation. A way of being party to the clean up of images that have thrived on covert oppression without accountability.

“When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up.”

― Cornel West, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom

There are so many on the internet, social media, community organizing spaces who are working for recognition, acquisition, privilege, or resolution from past trauma. I cannot help but think of the collateral damage. I cannot help but think of the people who are being used in the midst of their desperation for someone’s dissociation from their own pain….. I protect out of hopes that people are spared from the depth of the evils of humanity. Preventative action that leaves me scarred in failing to protect, and validate myself. Martyrdom is not my destiny, not my ancestors’ hopes, and dooms any work towards liberation. Educating and holding space for her further pushed me away from my own awakenings.

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare,"

—Audre Lorde, A Burst of Light and Other Essays.

I could not help but meditate over the tangible things I suggested to her. That is the grieving of what was given in earnesty for healing. The books I gave her to read. That is grieving sacred wisdom meant to instruct. All of the words that were meant to be meditated upon, sat into, chewed slowly and swallowed intently. The ever present signs that she was unable to sit still, to be observer, and not be actionary. There were so many signs that make me understand why she was not asked back to certain collaboratory spaces. How she was the one behind the scenes of the MHEC, and the funding. Reinforcing the Non-Profit Industrial Complex with Black death. How she is grooming her next iteration. Why she does not that the capacity to speak up in certain spaces. Where her shame and jealousy ran over into social justice. And I cannot help but think of the all of the collateral damage of her arrogance mixed with ignorance over her career. She was the last domino to fall in the realm of birth workers who used access to my kindness for personal gain. Access to my inability to have boundaries, investment in being palatable and nice. Access to my wisdom that sutures people together in sacred spaces only to have my humanity be the collateral damage. It is a really shitty place to be in when you are the one who says no to bullshit, when the world wants to gobble it up, as long as it has thousands of followers, institutional acceptance, visual aesthetics and makes you feel good. It is a really shitty place to be in to grieve for the time spent where people said they cared for you while they gleaned everything they could take for their own ascension. And then have the luxury to vacate the same spaces where they exploit, unscathed. Spaces like the Internet.

“The visible display of power by the Machine culture is similar to the unspeakable being spoken. It generates a force field inside of which one is enslaved. To display power is to become servile to it in a way that is extremely disempowering. This is because the service is fueled by the terror of losing the fantasy of having power.”

― Malidoma Patrice Somé, Ritual: Power, Healing and Community

Birth does not feel good. The splitting open of a body does not feel good. The transition into parenting is not smooth and soft. The transition of death does not feel good. The dying may feel release but the remaining feel a vacuum. Both are hard and jarring based on the level of privilege that affords you access to certain infrastructure. This person moves within that infrastructure without abandon on the labor of the disenfranchised. On the suffering of the discarded. On the birthing of this nation by Black bodies, on the exploitation and the suffocation of Black grief. I cannot do this because I am a light-skinned, Black woman. I have a physical, spiritual, and cultural duty to care. My caring is co-opted, commodified and auxiliary for this person. But, maybe this will incite change. Maybe someone reading this is in relationship with a certain someone, someone who is moving with the same agency, and force the conversation, the hard conversation. My lack of boundaries, my deep belief in humanism, my inability to dissect intentions are the culmination of this pain. I opened myself up to this when I chose them over myself, over and over. The culmination of grief at the current cancerous nature of birth work, and the absolute desertion of death work at the expense of capitalism’s collateral damage.

They will continue to exploit Black pain and death. Will continue to fail to adhere to congruence. Will fail to silence themselves, and pass the mic so the oppressed can speak. Will fail to give their privilege and power over fully to those that require liberation. Deserve liberation. Deserve to be acknowledged as full human beings.

“We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.”

— Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”, an essay within Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches