What also drives me crazy about Black folks saying it's not our fight is it's incorrect. How do you not realize that there are BLACK immigrants in this country too? From The Continent and West Indies? I live in a city with a pretty big East African population (Renton/Seattle), and my son's daycare is run by Somali immigrants. This is absolutely our fight. Because after (or as!) ICE is snatching up Latinos, who do you think they're eagerly waiting to profile and deport next? If birthright citizenship doesn't matter, what does that mean for Black people who are already profiled more heavily than others?
Thank you for chronicling the latest development in our Weak Bitch pandemic. MLK’s spirit cannot rest in peace because he is always being invoked in vain.
It’s embarrassing to read these people brag about cowardice (no one told you to hop on the Internet and admit this, Janet!). And it’s such a stark contrast against the real activists who are choosing not to join the street protests. *They* are saying “I’m a primary caregiver and I can’t afford to go to jail,” or “I’ve been on the ground for 10+ years, I’ve already been doxxed, I cannot risk this level of escalation again.” Or whatever! But there is such a level of thoughtfulness and risk calculation compared to this blanket cowardice.
And I find it especially annoying because Black people, specifically, NEED to have deeper conversations about organizing after BLM turned out to be full of scammers. But it’s like we can’t even discuss the merits of street protesting as a tactic because people are too busy hyping up their own uselessness.
Also who, exactly, is swooping in to protect Black people if we sit this one out? Are we *checks notes* expecting White liberals to get the job done? That thing that hasn’t worked in over a decade? Are the other POC supposed to hold the fort when they are the ones getting deported and detained for activism?
But yes, there’s SUCH a difference between “I’m not protesting in the streets this time, but here’s what I’m doing instead” and “I’m not caring about this because I did my time, and by that I mean I voted.”
Hey Marion! Thrilled I’ve stumbled upon your writing — I have millions of words I could write about this, but simply wanted to illuminate a perspective I believe you touched on briefly but feels incredibly important here: first, that Black people from throughout the diaspora with American citizenship who did exercise their right to vote can and should feel proud of that continued faith in the democratic process (the amount of people who chose to sit out and shrug for the past three midterm and presidential elections keeps me awake at night). That is absolutely a gesture of resistance in an increasingly apathetic country, especially in support of a party that has promised much to people of color and delivered far too little. (It’s also a right/duty I’ll cherish while living abroad and still paying taxes and holding an American passport.) Second, I can’t help but feel this argument is incomplete without addressing the sickness Black people in the U.S. (Black women in particular) have been contending with for generations as they prop up themselves and their communities — thanklessly, silently, and to the detriment of their own families and lives — it is from that dry well of exhaustion and suffering that they have arrived here at the front lines of fascism and are unwilling to pick up something, anything, to battle back against the fray.
I believe that was the point.
To exhaust us, to leave us without hope or help for so long that when we see others suffering we are reminded of our own… and the silence that met us when we needed support in the name of community.
And so I cannot blame an individual for a systemic failing. It is why I’ve left the country, not to not fight, but to use the tools I have to fight from another shore. And if every single Black woman with US citizenship could do the same, I would say, Lorde, Baldwin, and so many others welcome you. It is okay to choose you after what is and continues to be a long, unjust fight.
No moral high ground here. Just utter and complete empathy for those at the bottom of a caste system that are surviving against all odds.
I don't know if this link will show the vignette of Black people being harassed for doing the things i.e. fishing, driving, just freaking existing- simple pleasures that other folx can do uninterrupted .
It's not rest. It's exhaustion. Exhaustion of never being able to rest, or do ANYTHING WHILE BLACK in AmeriKKKa. Yes, "the others" need to do more, put their bodies on the line and protest. Black Americans, and Black women, especially do not owe any race anything in this nation.
We all owe each other something, actually. That’s what being in community means. And we especially owe each other something when white supremacy is thriving by setting us against each other. If you want to let them do that, then do you, bb. But don’t come to my page and act like you’re claiming some kind of moral high ground by doing so.
What also drives me crazy about Black folks saying it's not our fight is it's incorrect. How do you not realize that there are BLACK immigrants in this country too? From The Continent and West Indies? I live in a city with a pretty big East African population (Renton/Seattle), and my son's daycare is run by Somali immigrants. This is absolutely our fight. Because after (or as!) ICE is snatching up Latinos, who do you think they're eagerly waiting to profile and deport next? If birthright citizenship doesn't matter, what does that mean for Black people who are already profiled more heavily than others?
Exactly. EXACTLY.
Thank you for chronicling the latest development in our Weak Bitch pandemic. MLK’s spirit cannot rest in peace because he is always being invoked in vain.
It’s embarrassing to read these people brag about cowardice (no one told you to hop on the Internet and admit this, Janet!). And it’s such a stark contrast against the real activists who are choosing not to join the street protests. *They* are saying “I’m a primary caregiver and I can’t afford to go to jail,” or “I’ve been on the ground for 10+ years, I’ve already been doxxed, I cannot risk this level of escalation again.” Or whatever! But there is such a level of thoughtfulness and risk calculation compared to this blanket cowardice.
And I find it especially annoying because Black people, specifically, NEED to have deeper conversations about organizing after BLM turned out to be full of scammers. But it’s like we can’t even discuss the merits of street protesting as a tactic because people are too busy hyping up their own uselessness.
Also who, exactly, is swooping in to protect Black people if we sit this one out? Are we *checks notes* expecting White liberals to get the job done? That thing that hasn’t worked in over a decade? Are the other POC supposed to hold the fort when they are the ones getting deported and detained for activism?
“Our Weak Bitch pandemic” 💀
But yes, there’s SUCH a difference between “I’m not protesting in the streets this time, but here’s what I’m doing instead” and “I’m not caring about this because I did my time, and by that I mean I voted.”
Hey Marion! Thrilled I’ve stumbled upon your writing — I have millions of words I could write about this, but simply wanted to illuminate a perspective I believe you touched on briefly but feels incredibly important here: first, that Black people from throughout the diaspora with American citizenship who did exercise their right to vote can and should feel proud of that continued faith in the democratic process (the amount of people who chose to sit out and shrug for the past three midterm and presidential elections keeps me awake at night). That is absolutely a gesture of resistance in an increasingly apathetic country, especially in support of a party that has promised much to people of color and delivered far too little. (It’s also a right/duty I’ll cherish while living abroad and still paying taxes and holding an American passport.) Second, I can’t help but feel this argument is incomplete without addressing the sickness Black people in the U.S. (Black women in particular) have been contending with for generations as they prop up themselves and their communities — thanklessly, silently, and to the detriment of their own families and lives — it is from that dry well of exhaustion and suffering that they have arrived here at the front lines of fascism and are unwilling to pick up something, anything, to battle back against the fray.
I believe that was the point.
To exhaust us, to leave us without hope or help for so long that when we see others suffering we are reminded of our own… and the silence that met us when we needed support in the name of community.
And so I cannot blame an individual for a systemic failing. It is why I’ve left the country, not to not fight, but to use the tools I have to fight from another shore. And if every single Black woman with US citizenship could do the same, I would say, Lorde, Baldwin, and so many others welcome you. It is okay to choose you after what is and continues to be a long, unjust fight.
No moral high ground here. Just utter and complete empathy for those at the bottom of a caste system that are surviving against all odds.
https://www.facebook.com/share/16XYKM9H3w/
I don't know if this link will show the vignette of Black people being harassed for doing the things i.e. fishing, driving, just freaking existing- simple pleasures that other folx can do uninterrupted .
It's not rest. It's exhaustion. Exhaustion of never being able to rest, or do ANYTHING WHILE BLACK in AmeriKKKa. Yes, "the others" need to do more, put their bodies on the line and protest. Black Americans, and Black women, especially do not owe any race anything in this nation.
We all owe each other something, actually. That’s what being in community means. And we especially owe each other something when white supremacy is thriving by setting us against each other. If you want to let them do that, then do you, bb. But don’t come to my page and act like you’re claiming some kind of moral high ground by doing so.
Ma’am. This — holistically and
comprehensively — ain’t it!