Hello friends,
In thinking about my recent Substack Notes experience, one thing has become clear. Black folx and Black women in particular can’t really “win” when it comes to talking about racism. Not that there are truly any winners here.
When I look back over my choices at the time, they were limited. I could have said nothing, and let people go on spewing bigotry. That would probably have kept me personally safe from harm.
Or I could have chosen to speak, which I did because it didn’t sit right with me to let the bigotry go unchallenged. And I also thought other people needed to see what it was like.
For my trouble, I was characterised as “whiny” and “weak” when all I did was state the facts as they happened and ask for a platform-level solution. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
What’s really interesting is that though I pretty much stopped engaging with those people - I have reshared similar perspectives from others - they kept coming after me. Now that they know I exist, they cannot wait to tell me how wrong I am to hold the perspectives I do. To date, I still have made no personal attacks on anyone. As I said in my last piece, when people are offended by my general comments about racists and bigots, it says more about them than it does me, because I named no names.