Dear Beloved Melanated Fam Traversing On and Off the Plantation
It’s not you.
I promise
I promise
It is not you.
Don’t you go on swallowing tales that no longer fit this current reality
Tales that suggest
That it is better to go on swallowing institutional abuses and spirit injuries
That it is better to hold onto years of scapegoating
Years of gaslighting
Years of workplace toxicity
All in the name of racial justice
Social justice
Economic justice
Community
Freedom
Liberation
All in the name of keeping a job
All in the name of keeping a paycheck
All in the name of obtaining a “professional title”
All in the name of a degree
All in the name of some grant
These assaults on the spirit
This isn’t something for safekeeping
This isn’t something that warrants our protection
This is about releasing
This is about shedding
This is about releasing fucked up mental cords
That have existed for us Melanated peoples for centuries
The exploitation of our labor, the attacks on our mental health,
Are being disguised and masqueraded as JUSTICE, as COMMUNITY, as LIBERATION for insert
Some black population
***IE: Black families who have lost children to police violence
***IE: Black families who are houseless
***IE: Black women who have faced reproductive harm and injustice
***IE: Black and Brown entrepreneurs
The creative force, brilliance, and pure magic of Black folks, Black femmes, queers, working class, neurodivergent, poor, underresourced, uninsured, and deep feeling Black folks are being snatched! Snatched away to be used on and peppered across a gamut of marketing materials, campaigns, etc for poignant one liners and sound bites. All of this to perform whatever is listed on the mission statement. This is a performance and many of us have been watching behind the scenes for years.
Performative activism/Performative social justice and diversity branding paired with a commitment to antiquated white supremacist practices are the perfect breeding ground for spiritual, psychic, physical warfare for ourselves and our Melanated siblings and fam.
Organizations that scoff at the mention of the word trauma, that fire folks after they have told them they have lost a family member, that fire people without properly training them to begin with….I mean...this aint it. How we ever came to believe for a second that it was is a part of the grand illusion, is a part of the performance.
Want evidence?
Need testimony?
Listen to any melanated person on their experiences from 2012 - 2021 who isn’t a high profile person.
Who doesn’t have a huge platform, huge following
Who isn’t making book deals
Who isn’t in movies
Listen to the families,
Blessing to courageous Samaria Rice who lost her 12 years old son tragically after he was executed and shot down within seconds for just being outside.
Regardless how you feel about her comments made toward high profile folks, The critique on the Non Profit Industrial Complex is real
Activists are becoming celebrities
The exploitation of families is happening
Is it not???
I want to hear more from us
I always want to hear more from us
The families, the zinesters, the artists, the poets
Those of us who have been cycling on and off the plantation
Those of us recreating and stitching back together identity and boundaries
Those of us working with our grief
We’ve been holding this, speaking on it in little ways here and there
While simultaneously trying to face our shadows
And begin the work again of growing ourselves anew.
Great blessings and deep appreciations to the people who have been speaking on this and providing counter narratives to the mass machine.
List below of a few writings & talks that have been incredibly affirming and grounding for me (and Im sure others) who are also traversing workplaces, academic spaces or simply just on and off the plantation.
Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism
Your Job is Not Your Political Home and That is a Good Thing
Yup. Non-profit culture and performative activism perpetuate ableism and anti-Blackness
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded
New Earth Currencies Zakiya Harris
Left of Black with Alexis de Veaux