What anti-Blackness also* looks like
* in addition to police brutality
This heaviness is weighing me down and I need to release it.
CW: This is heavy.
I’ve been sitting with a lot of feelings over this current uprising. Make no mistake, I am 100% here for it. And I’m also so very skeptical. I see so many white and non-Black friends, colleagues, allies etc adding #BlackLivesMatter everywhere, going to marches, and providing support to this movement against police brutality.
And I can’t help but wonder, what are you doing about your own anti-Blackness?
If you are not Black, you’ve been an active participant in anti-Blackness. I don’t make the rules, society does. I appreciate the support around ending police brutality, defunding police, and discussing systemic racism. Those are all great macro approaches to institutionalized racism. But what are you doing on the micro level to address your own anti-Blackness? What are you doing to check yourself? To help start the conversation, I am going to detail some of the many “microaggressions” I have dealt with. I ask that you read this list and make yourself aware of when you have been an active participant in any of these. Not just in my life, but in the lives of any Black people.
Anti-Blackness also looks like:
Your teacher telling you that her dog doesn’t like Black people.
Your teacher praising “high achieving” Black students by telling us that we are not like “the others” and will do well in life.
Witnessing white people claim to lift up the voices of Black people, while making money off of us and not actively lifting up anyone but themselves.
Crying to your supervisor and begging for help with a difficult work situation and being told “there’s only so much that can be done.”
Crying to your supervisor and begging for help with a difficult work situation and being told that the solution involves you doing more work.
Crying to your supervisor and begging for help with a difficult work situation and getting no help. But a white colleague cries over the exact same thing and multiple people offer their help and support to fix the issue.
Starting a new job and having a stream of Black people come to you to tell you the many ways they have faced racism at your workplace...
… and then being told by your superiors that this is an issue you will have to fix.
Being called “articulate” when having casual conversations.
Having your grammar corrected in casual conversations.
Being called “racist” when you call out anti-Blackness.
Having the white person who called you racist tell you they are disappointed in you because they expected better.
Witnessing the look on colleagues’ faces when their assumption that the “polite, articulate, and well-spoken” person they have been communicating with via email is Black.
Being told that you don’t know what it’s like to walk in a room and be judged on your appearance.
Having a partner get upset when you don’t introduce them to all your Black friends.
Getting scolded to “not be one of those really sensitive Black people.”
Only hearing from non-Black friends when they need support and want you to provide unpaid emotional labor.
Receving articles about racism and discrimination from white friends who don’t bother to discuss the same article or issue with any of their white friends.
As a Black queer woman, being told that you are appropriating white gay culture when using AAVE.
Listening to white cis gay men complain to you, a Black queer woman, about white cishet women using “gay slang.”
Getting reprimanded to be careful of your tone in meetings because you don’t want to get labeled as “the angry Black woman.”
Constantly having your tone policed.
Listening to white people tell you how you should feel/act/exist/etc
Being inundated on social media by white people telling you how you should participate in the uprising.
Watching white people tell Black people what Black liberation should look like, because they’ve “been doing ‘this work’ for many years.”
Getting forced out of a job and being encouraged to leave the organization because you can’t “be challenged any longer”...
... and then getting bad job references from superiors who held grudges against you because you put effort in at your job.
Being told that you are intimidating, simply for existing.
Receiving encouragement to support a white person through their journey of unpacking whiteness after they have done active harm to you.
Having non-Black people insist that they better understand the Black experience because they volunteered/did AmeriCorps/got to protests/read a book/have a degree/have a Black friend/etc.
Dealing with cis gay white men at the gay bar who assume you are there to be their new best friend, and not because you are queer.
Getting invited to attend/support events and happenings when you are the only Black person there.
Listening to white friends regularly share the story of the first time they were the only white person in a room and needing everyone to understand how significant that moment was for them.
Dating a non-Black person who believes they have unpacked their anti-Blackness by virtue of being attracted to you.
Navigating the moment that a non-Black partner says they “don’t want the focus of the relationship to be on Blackness.”
Listening to friends discuss how important it is that they raise their kids in the suburbs to ensure they have the best educational opportunities.
Being told by a white friend that they had to work harder to get an opportunity while they imply that you only received the same opportunity through affirmative action.
Having your success in higher education invalidated because “it must mean that you come from ’a more privileged background.’”
Being given the nickname “mama” because you are kind and supportive.
Getting told that racism probably isn’t the reason you were treated poorly.
Getting constantly mixed up with the other Black women at your job.
Having white friends assume that having more than one Black friend absolves them of their anti-Blackness.
Having a colleague tell you that you need to cry at a staff meeting so that people would show you more empathy.
Faking being stoic so that people don’t see you as overly emotional.
I hope this list caused a lot of feelings in you. It has for me. This is not a list of shared experiences with other Black people. This is my personal list. And I didn’t even list all the “microaggressions;” I just got tired of recalling so many bad memories.
The purpose of this list and these thoughts are to help non-Black folks call themselves in. If you personally identify with one of the items on this list, please know I am not accepting apologies. I don’t want apologies, I want you to do better.
As a woman, I’m told that my power comes from within and that nobody can take it away from me. As a Black woman, I also know what it’s like to be belittled, undervalued and insulted just for purely existing.
I’ve been told so many times that I’m “intimidating” or “unkind” that I started to believe it. When you’re told the same thing over and over again, it’s hard to not internalize it. I don’t have the luxury or privilege of believing that power comes from within. As someone with little power within systems of oppression, my own internal sense of self has been attacked by often well-intentioned white loved ones.
In some lower moments I think that it would hurt me less to be killed by a police officer than to deal with this shit every day. Black people who are killed by the cops are made martyrs for their struggles and the rest of us Black people just have to deal with it. Are the only two options death or near constant put downs and belittlement? It’s a lose-lose for all of us until all non-Black people put in the work to unpack their anti-Blackness.
Yes, anti-Blackness is police hurting people but it’s also all of these things. These small moments that happen all the time. These things that are done by colleagues and friends alike. These things that are done by strangers on the street and by people I care for deeply. There’s a quiet optimism growing within me that this uprising is the one we have been waiting for. I just hope that people can see the quiet, un-instagramable work that needs to be done is just as important as your social media post for abolition.
It’s a lose-lose for all of us until all non-Black people put in the work to unpack their anti-Blackness.