Ijeoma Oluo's Blog

The White Men Who Threaten Me With Their Own Suicide

My writing about race and gender has made me a target for desperate white men who don’t want to change

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Your Body Just Wants You to Get Through This

For almost two decades, I lived in a body that terrified me. That’s finally beginning to change.

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Your Body Just Wants To Get Through This

When I was 20 years old, I found out that my blood was poisonous. I remember opening up an official-looking letter, informing me that the…

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The Thing About Safety

Many of you have read about what happened to my family a few weeks ago. In the culmination of weeks of escalating abuse from white supremacist trolls, our home was swatted, endangering my 17 year old son who was home alone at the time. In the weeks since the harassment of me and my family has continued fairly relentlessly, online and in person.

I’ve been told by advisors and law enforcement that it is in my best interest to stay quiet until this dies down. That it is best to pretend like none of this is happening so that I don’t give these terrorists “what they want” - which is to see a Black woman in pain and fear.

Here’s the thing about that.

I started writing as a Black woman in pain and fear. That is why I am where I am. If white supremacists want to get off on Black pain and fear, they need not do anything more than sit back and let our system work the way it has worked for hundreds of years.

I started writing because every single day I was living a half-life. I started writing because I was tired of taking in every racist joke, every insult, every assumption. I was tired of hearing the locks on people’s cars click down as I walked past theirs in a grocery store parking lot. I was tired of worrying about my brother’s safety when he went on tour. I was tired of worrying that I might die at each traffic stop. I was tired of seeing Black body after Black body lying in the street like so much garbage after an encounter with police.

And I was so very tired of being silent through it all. Silence was not helping me. It was killing me.

Before the events of these last few weeks happened, people still regularly asked me if I ever considered to give up my work in order to protect my safety and sanity as a Black woman.

My answer has always been the same: I would still be a Black woman in America — I just wouldn’t be able to speak openly about what I was enduring.

These last years, since I started writing — I’ve been as free as I can imagine a Black woman to be in this country. I have been able to speak openly, without reservation, about my lived experience and the experiences of my community. I have been able to look at white supremacy and call it what it is. I have not had to worry about losing my job; it is my job. I have not had to worry about losing friends (they left many essays ago). I have not had to bite my tongue in order to provide food for my family. I have not had to bend over backwards to prove that I am a “nice” negro in order to not end up in HR for my “attitude problem.” I know that if I encounter violence because of my race — while I will not be avenged the way that white people would be — I will be heard and believed in a way in which few people of color are.

And the price I have had to pay for that is that I get fairly regular death threats, occasionally my personal address and the addresses of my family members are posted online, occasionally my financial information is posted, and occasionally six rifle-carrying police officers will pull my son out of bed at 6am because someone pretending to be him called and said that he had murdered two people in my home.

If I let this work go in order to avoid paying that price, every other price of existing as a Black person in America still waits for me and my family. It does not go away. It does not make my sons more safe. It does not make me more safe.

There are different ways to kill a person. Not all of them make headlines.

In the midst of all of this, I have been surrounded by love. Deep love from my family, my Black community, my POC community, my queer community, my activist community. I have been held and renewed in the knowing Black love of my partner. I have been refocused in the light and hope of my two children.

I am not going anywhere. I’m not going to disappear. No matter what comes my way.

There are also different ways to live.

There is more to me than the terror that I’ve experienced these last weeks. There is more to me than the lifetime of trauma I’ve experienced. While I do not ever want to be reduced to that, I know that I cannot be a whole person in any space if I cannot bring that experience in with me. I know that I cannot heal if it cannot be known.

I do not believe that white supremacy will allow me to “take a break” and then get back to the fight for liberation when things calm down. I do not believe that white supremacy will settle for anything less than my silence. And while I do not know what the future will bring I do know that I will not go quietly.

Whether I am afraid or not is beyond the point. Yes I’m afraid. I’ve cried more these last few weeks than I have in years. I’m sure there is more to come in the future. But we are all afraid. And there are people who are facing the brutality of white supremacy to a degree that I have never known — and there are no news stories talking about them. And they fight still, with everything they have.

There is no beauty in this. There is no glory in this. This is shitty and disgusting and absurd and embarassing that in 2019 this is what our society is. People of color should not have to live in fear and pain. Highly-functioning-with-PTSD is not a cultural attribute of communities of color, it’s a fucking crime of an entire nation.

My fellow POC who are hurting and afraid: I hear you, I see you. You shouldn’t have to go through this, and you shouldn’t be the one tasked with fighting it. Thank you. Thank you for being here in a world that has tried so hard to tell you that you don’t belong. I love you.

To those who really, really want me to shut up:

Nah.

I Don’t Feel Like Celebrating

I was asked to give the keynote speech for King County’s Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration held today. For those who were unable to attend, below is the speech I gave.

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

That is our theme for today’s event. As someone who lives in this county and has lived in the greater Seattle area for 36 years, I’ve been reflecting on these words and what they mean to me here, in this place and time.

But as I was reflecting on these words for this speech, I was first brought to the invite I was sent to speak here.

I was invited to help “celebrate” the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Celebrate.

Celebrate is a very specific word. It is a word that is often used when I’m asked to speak in January and February about Dr. King (and yes, I’m only asked to speak on Dr. King in January and February).

But in thinking of what it looks like to speak with truth and live in the love of the great Dr. King — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When 25% of my brothers and sisters live below the federal poverty level — in an area with one of the highest costs of living in the country — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When black people make up 6% of our population and 44% of the population of our youth detention centers — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When Hispanic people make up 9% of our population and 19% of the population of our youth detention centers — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When Indigenous people make up less than 1% of our population and almost 6% of the population of our youth detention centers — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When the average black household in King County makes just $35,000 while the average white household in King County makes over $75,000 — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When 17% of expecting Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in King County are lacking in prenatal care — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When 9% of expecting Indigenous people in King County are lacking in prenatal care — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When 8% of expecting black people in King County are lacking in prenatal care — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When the suspension and expulsion rate for black students is four times higher than white students and two times higher for Latinx and Indigenous students than white students — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When I see budgets to build new youth detention that far outweigh budgets to reduce youth detention — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

When children of color make up 1/3 of our child population but over half of our population in foster care — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

As I watch friend after friend, community member after community member, be pushed out of their homes and away from the safety, security, and resources of their community by gentrification, further solidifying all of the frightening statistics I just gave — celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.

No — as a country, as a county — as a society — I do not think we get to celebrate yet. I do not think Dr. King would want to celebrate either.

So perhaps there’s another word. A word that I wish came up more often when these celebrations are being planned. A word that I wish came up more often whenever Dr. King is referenced.

Honor.

What does it look like to honor Dr. King? What does it look like to honor his words that were chosen for today: “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”

I have given truth. Truth that does not care about your excuses. Truth that does not care about your complications. Truth that says that for over 400 years our people have been abused. That for over 400 years our children have not been allowed to be children. Truth that says that this county has failed, and is failing, its people of color every day, in countless ways. It is a truth that cannot be argued. A truth that must be reckoned with and accounted for.

I’m sorry if I’ve ruined your celebration with the truth.

But there is more to the Dr. King quote. You may be asking, where is the love? The unconditional love that Dr. King spoke of?

First let me say that it is the unconditional love that brings this truth here. That has me here in front of a large group of people saying what I’m pretty sure they don’t want to hear. Love that has me risking all of our comfort to say what absolutely must be said. Love for my family, for my people, for our history, for our potential. Love for this great pacific northwest that I desperately want to love me back.

So what does it look like for this county to live in the unconditional love that Dr. King spoke of?

It looks like truly engaging with communities of color, investing in communities of color.

It looks like honoring all of the ways in which, despite all of the overwhelming odds against us, we have survived and continue to survive.

It looks like supporting the work we are already doing instead of insisting that you know what is best for us.

It looks like investing in our children’s education instead of incarceration.

It looks like honoring and protecting our communities of color as actual communities that need to be together and not dispersed to meet the desires of a vision of progress that has never included us.

It looks like holding our schools accountable for not seeing our children as children. Our police accountable for seeing our people as violent. Our judges and prosecutors accountable for seeing our people as irredeemable.

It looks like seeking out and targeting the White Supremacy in your meetings, your management structure, your goals, your votes, your budgets.

There are so many ways to live and work in the love that Dr. King spoke of. There are so many ways in which you must. Because we cannot give back childhoods lost. We cannot put families back together. We cannot bring back lives lost. Love is an action. And you must act.

That is what it looks like to honor Dr. King.

Perhaps, if we had done more to honor him over the years, I would feel like celebrating right now.

I will say to those of you in this audience who have been working every day — often against your peers — to honor Dr. King — thank you. I see you. You are appreciated even if it is not heard enough — even if in this very speech our ongoing emergency has called me to focus on what is not being done instead of what you are doing. This is another thing that White Supremacy has taken from us.

Your work is necessary — and I truly hope that others here today will join you in your efforts, will support you in the ways that you need to do the work that we all need. I know that you are working toward a day when this will truly be a day of celebration. I do believe that one day we will be able to celebrate together. I have to believe that. That is what we are fighting for. A county that lives in unarmed truth, and has unconditional love — for all of us.

We women can be anything. But can we be angry?

REUTERS/Carlos Vera

What are we going to do with this rage?

That was a question I asked on social media today as the Senate moved one step closer to confirming a man accused of sexual assault, a man who screamed and lied and laid bare his extreme partisanship with no shame instead of answering questions about the accusations of sexual assault, to a lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court judge.

Some of the answers I got to this question were in sad jest. “Drink.” A few people said. Some were the same answers we’ve been hearing for every problem this horrific administration has laid at our feet: “Vote.” Some people simply answered variations of, “The same thing we’ve always done.”

But I was asking a question that I was really hoping people would put serious thought to. Because it is something I’ve been putting serious thought to. I am angry. I am so very angry. I’m sad and scared and tired and overwhelmed but also, every single day, I am angry.

I am angry that we have a president who brags about assaulting women, a Senate who will confirm a Supreme Court justice accused of assaulting women. I am angry that undocumented women who try to seek safety from abusive partners now risk deportation. I am angry that neo-Nazis are marching down the streets and police are more likely to arrest their counter-protesters than the racist thugs with torches. I am angry that business interests are being placed in charge of our environmental protection. I am angry that a woman who despises education has been placed in charge of our schools. I am angry that our already struggling healthcare for vulnerable and sick and disabled people is being gleefully stripped away. I am angry that black babies are dying in childbirth, dying in our playgrounds, dying in traffic stops. I am angry that Flint still doesn’t have drinking water and that Indigenous water protectors still stand alone. I am angry that on the evening that Donald Trump was elected to office my 8 year old son fell asleep with his laptop on his chest, his screen full of search results for “white supremacy.”

I am angry that yesterday a freshman — a child — took a gun onto my teenage son’s high school campus, and as he huddled on the cold floor of a dark locker room he had to text me, “Hey mom it’s Malcolm, just letting you know our school is having an emergency lockdown…” I’m angry that this isn’t the first time he’s had to do that. I’m angry that as I was anxiously waiting for news that everyone was okay I was thinking of how I’m so close — so close to getting him out of there. He’s a senior, 17, on the verge of independence and it could all be destroyed by kid who’s angry at a girl and a country that loves guns more than the safety of its children. I’m angry that right now somebody reading this will want to accuse me of “exploiting” gun violence to make a political point.

I am so angry, I am angry because all that I love is being threatened. I am angry because the people, the institutions, the values that I and so many others love are being destroyed. I am angry that even though every day there seems to be a new horror visited upon us by this administration, we are told to not be angry.

And we are constantly being told not to be angry. As a black woman especially, I hear it from all corners. To be angry is to give in to stereotypes of the shrill feminist, the mad black woman. To be angry is to trade intellect for emotion. To be angry is to be irrational and violent. To be angry is to be like them. To be angry is to lose.

But none of that is true. I am angry because I love. I am angry because what I love is being harmed. I know why my people matter, why the environment matters, why human rights matter, why justice matters. And I know that this all deserves love. I know that it deserves protection. And I know who is fighting to deny it what it deserves. I know that when that which we love is being harmed — to not be angry would be unconscionable.

As a black woman I have been told to hold many things at once. I’ve been told to hold shame, and fear and love. I’ve been told to hold the dreams of men, the futures of boys, the failures of fathers. I’ve been told to hold our elders and our young.

And yes, I can hold my intellect and my analysis of what is going on in this world. I can hold my ability to compromise and my ability to persevere. All this has always been expected of me. Perhaps it has been expected of you was well.

So surely, if we can hold all of that. We can hold this anger. Perhaps, if we set a few select things down, we could wield it.

This administration, and the legions of violent (mostly) white men who prop it up hope to overwhelm us. They hope to have us holding everything that we’ve always been told is our duty. They hope to have us running around trying to put out a thousand fires. They hope that we’ll remind each other that we’re too busy caring about their fears and their anger and their needs to have time for our own. They are hoping that we will keep reminding each other that our anger accomplishes nothing.

But how do we know that it will accomplish nothing when we’ve yet to put it to work? With all of the things that we manage to accomplish with so much stacked against us, we are supposed to believe that we can’t do something amazing with this anger? We owe our anger more than that.

What if, instead of being overwhelmed with their depravity, we overwhelmed them with our anger? What if every day, those who are working to increase the stronghold of white male patriarchy had to face the anger they have wrought everywhere they went? We’ve seen how terrified they are of the small amount of anger we’ve shown. We’ve seen how quickly they try to convince us that this new anger is not the answer, even though it has them talking about our rights and autonomy for the first time in decades, even though it already has them ringing alarms and coming up with contingency plans.

What if we took that anger beyond the internet? What if we took it into the streets more than once every two years? Into our boycotts? Into our strikes? Into the voting booth? What if we took that anger to our city council meetings? What if we took it to their campaign events and press conferences? What if we took it to our school boards and our workplaces? What if we took all this anger born of righteous love and aimed it?

So I’m asking you to please join me in thinking truly about what we are going to do with all of this rage.

It has to go somewhere.

What is it Going to Take?

Justice Anthony Kennedy just announced his retirement and I’m gutted. I knew it was coming, this final “fuck you” to those of us who like having basic rights and protections, but I’m still just gutted. History books — if we are lucky enough to have them — will remember Kennedy as a piece of shit who helped lock in generations of conservative hate and bigotry into our highest offices.

And if we are lucky enough to have history books, they will remember the millions of white Americans who pretended that they voted for Trump for anything other than protecting their own shares in White Supremacy.

They will remember how when a man promised hatred, bigotry and violence — when a man courted half of the population with the promise of dominion over the other half — that the most powerful and privileged of this other half told the rest of us that we weren’t allowed to call that man and his followers “deplorable”. That it made us just as bad as those who were signing up for our destruction.

They will remember how in a week where unions were dismantled, where bans on entire religious groups were reinforced, where gerrymandered districts were upheld, where families were begging to get their children back that had been stolen by our government and locked away in cages — that our opposition leaders spent much of their time debating whether or not the mouthpiece for this administration should be served a hamburger with a smile, and shaming a black woman for not being nice enough to the people supporting these atrocities.

Our history books, if we are lucky enough to have them, will remember the millions of words our major newspapers and magazines spent dedicated to humanizing neo-Nazis and White Supremacists, to arguing for “reaching out” to those who want to see the most vulnerable of us dead.

Our history books, if we are lucky enough to have them, will have our children and grandchildren (if we are lucky enough to have them) looking at us with confusion and shame.

And all of this is the best case scenario. All of this is if we are lucky. Lucky enough to still have an independent press. Lucky enough to still have someone who remembers. Lucky enough to have a future generation to lament what we’ve done.

Those chapters are written even if we have doomed ourselves to a future where those books will never be read.

There are already people who will die because of our complacency. There are already people who will not be saved, no matter what we do. We cannot wash that blood away.

So are you ready now? Are you ready to no longer act like you don’t hold the pen? Like you aren’t the one helping to write some of the darkest chapters of our history?

Are you ready to end these chapters and fight for new ones? For better ones? Chapters where you are not the worst villain of all — the bystander?

Goddamnit if you are reading this and think I’m being overdramatic I NEED YOU TO PAY ATTENTION RIGHT FUCKING NOW because the groundwork for the destruction of our entire democracy has already been laid and the work has already started. Our constitutional protections have been undermined, our vote has been diminished, our press marginalized and delegitimized, our checks and balances have been removed.

If you are not outraged, you are a part of the problem.

If you are not terrified, you are a part of the problem.

If you are not calling bigotry, hatred and violence what it is, you are a part of the problem.

If you are not fighting back with everything you have, you are a part of the problem.

For decades we have gone up against an opponent that wants to destroy us. That wants to remove our rights, embed bigotry and injustice further into our systems, that wants the destruction of black and brown communities, LGBTQ people, and the disabled. That wants the poor and addicted to die in the streets. For 20 years we have gone up against them and met them with…compromise.

How shameful that we have not been nearly as committed to equality as they are to hate.

I have nothing else to give today. Nothing but exhaustion and rage — no silver lining. I’ve been writing and marching and speaking and yelling for years and there are only so many times I can say the same fucking things and today I have nothing more than a big “fuck you.”

The only advice I have is to stop fucking around.

Fight.

Fight with your money. Fight with your vote. Fight with your protest. Fight with your words. Fight with your body.

Fight like your life depends on it. Fight like your soul depends on it.

Fight like you mean what you say. Fight like democracy matters. Fight like humanity matters. Fight like we matter.

Please.

How Non-Black People Can Talk About Kanye While Staying in their Lane

As the entirety of the internet seems to be discussing Kanye West’s most recent asshattery and all of black twitter seems to be heartily enjoying #IfSlaveryWasAChoice shenanegans, you, a concerned non-black person may be wondering…how do I join in this discussion?

Maybe you were a big fan of Kanye’s music and now you feel personally let down by how hard he’s trying to be the absolute worst.

Maybe you are a decent human who recognizes that Trump and his administration are hateful trashmonsters working diligently to make marginalized populations (and like, half of the global population) more unsafe and you are concerned to see a high profile music idol sing his praises to the delight of countless racist trolls.

Maybe you have read a book or two in your life or have a shred of empathy or are not completely drowning in anti-blackness - or due to being a human being walking around in the world you able to guess that 99.9% of humans do not like being dragged across the world in chains, bought and sold, tortured their entire lives, forced to work for free, starved, raped, and murdered - and have realized that black people were most likely not slaves by choice.

These are all very good reasons to be concerned about the very harmful shit that Kanye West has been saying. But there’s one catch — you aren’t black,

and Kanye is.

What if you say the wrong thing?

What if you jump into a black twitter thread and you think you are dancing on beat but then you open your eyes and stop snapping and realize that everybody is staring at you confused and disappointed?

What if you REALLY say the wrong thing and get called a racist?

If you find yourself feeling like you should say something about Kanye, but you aren’t sure how to do so responsibly, here are some helpful tips on how to stay in your lane.

First off, why do we need lanes? I hear some of you right now — “Isn’t it all of our duty to call out absolutely everything?” “Oh so I’m white and suddenly my opinion doesn’t count?” “Aren’t lanes divisive?” “Do you hate freedom of speech?” In short, my answers are: “No”, “Yes”, “No”, and “Read the Goddamn First Amendment So You Stop Looking Like An Ass.” But let’s dive slightly deeper.

If you are concerned by what Kanye is saying, I’m going to assume that it is at least in part because you are concerned with the hate, bigotry, and oppression of the Trump administration that Kanye’s supporting, or the massive amount of anti-blackness that Kanye is spouting when he claims that black people were slaves by choice. If either of these are true, then you should also be concerned about the power structure of systems of race and the anti-blackness that permeates our society and enables Trump and infects Kanye. This means, that even when you are discussing how universally shitty Kanye is being, you are also discussing a black man as a non-black person, and the way you do so can contribute to anti-blackness in a way that you may not intend, but will still be very responsible for.

There are people who will love to see you tear down Kanye, not because what he’s saying is absolute trash, but because he’s a black man. There are plenty of people who will love your comments about Kanye, not because they address Kanye’s absolute dedication to selfishness and ignorance, but because they feel the same way about all black people.

So here’s tip number 1: Know that we will collect our own. Kanye is currently being dragged to hell and back by his own people with more love and style than you will ever be able to manage. We got this. There’s nothing you can add to that particular conversation that is worth saying.

Tip 2: If you think Kanye is “in The Sunken Place” or “an Uncle Tom” or any other pejorative to describe the way in which he’s sold out his own people remember that NOBODY ASKED YOU.

If you think that you get to criticize black people for selling out to the system of anti-blackness that you as a non-black person benefit from and help maintain, you need to check your privilege and be quiet for a while.

Tip 3: Leave Kanye’s mental health out of this. Unless you are a licensed mental health professional who is currently treating Kanye, you need to stop trying to diagnose Kanye’s antics as a mental health crisis. You are not qualified, and your uneducated guesses are distracting from the real harm that Kanye’s words cause. People spent a lot of time during the last election speculating on Trump’s mental health, and you know what? He’s the fucking president now and maybe we should have gotten off of webMD and worked a little harder at calling out his hateful rhetoric.

Further, I know a lot of people who are living with mental illness and various neurodiversities and they are really awesome people who are very much at risk due to the hateful rhetoric and policies of this administration that Kanye is supporting, and who are constantly stigmatized by our ableist society and would really like to not also be lumped in with Kanye right now.

Tip 4: Talk to non-black people about Kanye. If you can’t join in on the black twitter antics, and you can’t rail at Kanye for his unapologetic ignorance and anti-blackness, what can you do? You can talk to other non-black people. For all of the speculation on why Kanye is doing what he’s doing — whether it’s attention, album sales, a future presidential run — it’s pretty obvious who Kanye is doing this for, and it’s not us. As Kirsten West Savali astutely observed on twitter: “He’s a tool, a token, a mascot. It’s 2018, and we’re out here explaining why slavery wasn’t a choice. Explaining it to whom?”

Kanye is betting on anti-blackness to gain him power and notoriety in non-black circles. He is selling out his own people because he knows that non-black people really love to think that black people are oppressed because they want to be. Whether he actually believes that or not is beside the point. He is providing anti-black America with the validation it needs to continue to harm us in the hopes that it will pay off for him personally. He is already being rewarded for it with the praise of Trump and countless other virulent racists across the country. While sad, this is in no way unique. Kanye joins a long line of black people who have decided that blackness is not worth fighting for. And while we know that anti-blackness will come for him in the end because white supremacy may use him but will never actually love him, the harm that he is helping to enable right now is real.

You need to be taking your dismay over Kanye’s words, and refocusing it onto the non-black people who will use these words to justify the oppression that is killing us. You need to make it known that you see their praise of Kanye as the anti-black opportunism that it is. You need to make what he does less effective, by making sure that your people know that it is unacceptable for them to use what he’s saying to cloak their bigotry. And as those spouting anti-blackness now have this great black shield to make them even less likely to listen to what we have to say, your duty to step up and speak out is even more necessary.

And if you are worried that these boundaries will leave you with little to do, rest assured: there is only one Kanye, but there are millions of anti-black opportunistic pieces of shit who are in desperate need of you telling them that they are opportunistic pieces of shit. It should keep you far too busy to even consider jumping into black twitter to figure out how you can make a #IfSlaveryWasAChoice meme that isn’t racist.

Your lane is very, very full.

On Starbucks & Corporate Accountability For Racial Bias

I’ve gotten a lot of questions from everyday people and from reporters and journalists about the recent controversy that Starbucks has found itself in after a patron recorded on her cell phone footage of two black men being handcuffed and taken to jail for the crime of sitting in a Starbucks while black.

These two men were doing what many people do in coffee shops, which is to say, nothing much. They were waiting for a friend to arrive, so that they could presumably drink coffee together and try to conduct a business conversation over the loud hiss of milk steamers, the regular shouts of “Lar….Lar…ine? Lar….one? Coffee for L….Larry?” and the constant hum of conversation from all the other people around you also trying to have conversations. This inefficient use of time spent over $7 bean water is a regular occurrence in modern day US society.

And so is blatant racial discrimination against black people. Two things America loves, coffee and racism. Together in one convenient location.

While this country can somehow explain away video of police shooting a black teenager 14 times while he’s walking away from officers or video of police officers choking an unarmed black man to death for the crime of selling loose cigarettes, or video of police officers shooting a 12 year old black boy to death for playing with a toy gun in a park, nearly everyone who saw black men being walked out of a Starbucks in handcuffs for doing what we all do at a Starbucks was shaking their heads and saying, “That’s fucked up.”

And while our police department will gleefully call our dead teenagers “thugs” and explain why they needed to be killed by the people paid presumably to protect them, Starbucks has in comparison taken the revolutionary stance of saying “Um, yeah, that was fucked up of us. We should’t have done that. We’re sorry.”

If that weren’t enough, Starbucks announced today that they would be shutting down every store for an evening at the end of this month to conduct nationwide anti-bias training.

Seriously, are ANY cops watching this and getting ideas? Any of them? Please?

As Starbucks tries to take some steps toward accountability and repairing their images, many people who know that Starbucks is likely not the last business to be caught treating black people like shit are asking: What now? What can businesses like Starbucks do to make this right?

As a black person who buys things, eats at restaurants, waits in lines, and yes- drinks coffee, I’m here to offer a few pointers to businesses and organizations that are looking to handle their own “Starbucks moment”, or prevent a future one from happening.

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You need to start from the presumption that your employees, management, training, and even products are riddled with implicit racial bias. Every single aspect of our culture is filled with racial bias. Our books, our movies, our music, our schools, our government. There is no way that anybody gets to be an adult without absorbing a healthy dose of that, no matter our intentions. If you start out your anti-bias work with the idea that you are educating a few “bad apples” instead of educating yourself and everyone around you, you and your employees will not internalize any anti-bias training or effectively put it to work

Hearts and minds matter less than rules and consequences. Yes, we really do need to put more effort into seeing the implicit racial bias that we have, and understanding how that harms people of color. But even if you have anti-bias training every day, you will still have employees who will leave class saying, “yeah, but fuck black people.” No matter what bigotries people may have, what they do or do not do at work is largely dictated by what they are expected to do and what they know that they cannot do without facing real consequences. If you do not have clear policies for how you will address complaints of racial bias, clear policies for how you will penalize patterns of racial bias, and clear training on how management can recognize and document racial bias, you will not see a substantial reduction in racial bias. Racial bias persists for a lot of reasons, but the number one reason why it persists is because it’s easy. If you want it to stop, you need to make it a lot less easy.

Racial equity needs to be built into the bones of your business. There is no easy fix for racial bias in business or in any organization. You cannot bring in a consultant for a day to talk about racism and expect to have any lasting effect other than the ability for your employees to comment on facebook whenever some racist shit goes viral that one day someone came and talked to them about race and it made them sad for a few hours so they totally understand how people of color are feeling. Is racial equity a part of your profit model? Are people of color customers that you are courting and actively trying to serve to the best of your ability every day? Are you thinking about their specific needs? What products they want? What environment would make them comfortable? What marketing would appeal to them? What would make them loyal customers? Are people of color employees that you want to recruit, retain and promote? Are you thinking about their specific needs? What they need from a work environment to feel comfortable, safe and valued? If you do not have employees on your regular payroll dedicated to this work, then you are not dedicated enough to racial justice to make a measurable and lasting impact on the racial bias in your company. There are no shortcuts here.

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The general idea is this: racial bias is a complex system of assumptions, privileges and oppressions that has worked its way through just every major part of our society. It has endured for hundreds of years because it is only easily seen by those at the ass-end of it. Those of us who bear the brunt of racial bias and oppression every day end up having to not only battle that bias and oppression, but also convince everyone else that it even exists. It is very hard for the majority of the population to see how the everyday businesses, agencies, and organizations that we interact with are perpetrating harmful racial bias, and even harder for the majority of the population to see how they are perpetrating harmful racial bias themselves. It is hard to see how something that can feel like the air you breathe to most, can be the storm you drown in to others.

The work is not easy, and it is not quick, but it is necessary and long overdue. Racial bias doesn’t just ruin someone’s day. It is cutting people of color out of employment opportunities, limiting our access to public spaces, denying us resources, and endangering our lives. Think of the incidences of police violence I mentioned at the beginning of this post and think about what could have happened to those two black men in Starbucks if they had resisted arrest in any way or made any sort of sudden movement around those officers.

We need to be more intentional in addressing racial bias in our society by finding its roots wherever we encounter it and doing the deep work of integrating racial equity principles, priorities and safeguards into every institution we have. Because right now, racial bias is manufactured and maintained in just about every institution we have.

While this may seem extreme, like too large a task, here is a silver lining. Chances are, you work intimately in or with a few institutions or businesses. Now that you know that this work needs to be done, you can step up to do your part to start this anti-bias work, or encourage it with any business that is trying to get your patronage. Every day we have an opportunity make a measurable impact on the racial bias within the businesses and organizations that we interact with. And every time we fail to do so is a lost opportunity that also has a measurable impact in helping to maintain systems of racial bias and oppression. I hope Starbucks decides to make the right impact, and I hope that you, whoever you are, will join them as well.

The Anger of the White Male Lie

I’m reading an email from a white man. It is about 15 paragraphs of poorly written vitriol, telling me in far too many words about how wrong I am. About everything. I’m wrong about feminism. It’s unnecessary. And by the way, the wage gap doesn’t exist. I’m even more wrong about racism. There is no more racism. It’s been over a very long time and maybe if people like me would just get over the past we’d be motivated to get off of our asses and get real jobs. As proof of how wrong I am, he’s included links to youtube videos made by other white men saying pretty much the exact same thing as him. He has also inserted a few graphs. He consistently calls me “Ms. Oluo” and reiterates a few times that he “means no disrespect” but it is clear from his insistence that I read all of his horrible paragraphs and that I “learn a little more” about “my people” that he means every bit of disrespect his poorly phrased sentences are capable of conveying and more.

He suggests that I try being “less angry” as if it is not anger that propelled him through a google search of my name, to my website, to my contact page, then to his email, and then through the writing of a billion paragraphs complete with charts and footnotes. He says “less angry” as if I am not currently adding his email into a file with countless other long-winded missives, dismissals and violent threats from white men who decided to take the time out of their day to let me know in sometimes very disturbing ways that they need me to be “less angry.”

In closing he puts his full name and title. He’s a woodcarver and personal trainer. And, apparently, expert on race and gender studies.

Somebody needs to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything they put their mind to.

I say that in jest. A lot. But I’m only half joking. Actually, I’m not joking at all. Somebody really does need to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything, and that they can have everything. Because it is not true, and it was never true, and we’re the ones who have to pay when they find that out.

Angry black woman.

I’m the angry black woman. I’m the shouting, take no shit, finger-wagging, side-eye giving black woman. I am angry about a lot of things. I’m angry about police brutality and systemic poverty and the school to prison pipeline. I’m angry because the community I love is threatened daily and has been for hundreds of years.

There is righteous anger born of love. Born of the desire to protect those that you love and the life that you love. Anger born of the need to hold tight what little joy and beauty you’ve been able to find in a hostile world.

I was never told by this society that I could be anything and I could have everything. I was always told to settle for less. And my anger and the anger of so many other marginalized people has always lied in that reality. The truth of the situation.

But white male anger is steeped in a lie. It is fighting for what they were never going to have. For the promises that were never going to be fulfilled. White men are the only people allowed to fully believe in the American dream and perhaps that is the cruelest thing to have ever been done to them and the world that has to suffer their anger as they refuse to let go of a fantasy that we were never allowed to imagine ourselves in.

White men who shoot up schools and workplaces are not murderous monsters, or mindless thugs. They are “lovesick” or “misunderstood” or “tragic.” Hundreds of thousands of words are dedicated to finding the reasons why someone with so much promise could have fallen so far.

But how much promise was there really?

How much promise is there in a life where you are told that all you have to do is exist in order to inherit a kingdom. How much promise is there in a life where your mediocrity is constantly applauded and every hero looks like you and every love interest is a supermodel, but at the end of the day you will be working in a cubicle with everyone else and your only consolation is that you will be making $1.50 an hour more than the women and people of color in your office?

How much promise is there in being told that your culture is the only one worth knowing, and that your language is the only one worth speaking? How much promise is there in never having to say you are sorry, never having to say you are wrong, never having to say you don’t know?

Many Americans love to laugh at the ridiculousness of monarchy. At these backwards countries who believe that simply by being born, these blueboods deserve to rule entire populations. But what is white male supremacy in America if not an overabundance of kingdom-less monarchs who can’t even speak French?

A few weeks ago I was sitting at a stoplight and realized that I wasn’t quite as sure how to get home as I’d initially thought. As I punched the “home” button on my Waze app on my phone I heard shouting to the right of my car. I looked over and there was a white man in an SUV waving his arms at me and yelling. He was furious that I’d dared to look at my phone in my car. He was oblivious to the fact that I was trying to actually be a safer driver by knowing where I was actually going. He just knew that he had pulled up next to me and I had my phone in my hand and he had to do something. He leaned out of the window of his SUV and spittle flew out of his mouth as he angrily shouted.

I looked straight ahead as he screamed, becoming angrier and angrier. I was afraid that he might be armed, he seemed out of control. The light turned green and I pulled forward, but the man next to me was too busy yelling to notice right away. Then, angry that I had pulled forward before him, he sped ahead with such force that I could hear his tires squeeling. He peeled in front of me and then had to swerve out of the way at the last minute to avoid hitting a car that was stalled around the corner. I shook my head in wonder at the absurdity of it all.

I wrote about the weird event on facebook, figuring if anything, it would be entertaining to my friends. Within a few seconds a commenter, a white woman, said, “Let me guess, this was a white man?” She had her own story about being yelled at for driving in a way that a white man disapproved of. Soon, many others were sharing their stories. Women who had been threatened. One woman who had been yelled at by the same man twice on two different occasions, a man who apparently yelled at women so often that he was unable to recognize her the second time. One woman talked about a rock being thrown at her car because a white man didn’t like how she drove. One white man tried to drive a friend of mine off the road. Another rammed a woman’s car.

The road was for men. It was supposed to be theirs like so much else was. And if they couldn’t boss women around at work, if they didn’t have a wife at home to scream at, goddamnit they were going to take control of the roads.

“Nobody cares about white men,” is a sentence I hear far too often. In facebook comments, tweets, article responses, emails, the op-eds of major national papers. Nobody cares about the white men left behind. Nobody cares about the white men who are collecting unemployment, or working middle management, or not getting regular blow jobs. Nobody cares about the white men whose hair is thinning and dad-bod is settling in and they never got to walk into a party with a hot girl on their arm and now it’s too late. Nobody cares about the white men who have to learn new terms like “privilege” or “cultural appropriation” or “social justice” — terms that don’t do anything to explain why they aren’t rich or powerful or happy.

But of course, everyone cares about white men. Do you want a movie about what it feels like to be a middle-class white man who has never gotten to skinnydip naked in the middle of the night with a hot girl? Oh it’s an entire genre. Do you want a really long think piece about how hearing the phrase “black lives matter” and having to go to community college instead of Harvard even though you only had a 2.3 gpa turned you into a neo-Nazi? If someone hasn’t written it yet, they will. Do you want a great American novel about how being a white dude working a secure, middle-management job with full health and retirement benefits makes you want to open fire at the next company potluck? Pretty sure your local librarian can point you to a few dozen.

And in all these tales, these articles and movies and songs — white men are angry. Justifiably angry, because they were supposed to be so much more than this. But nobody explains why.

Why were they supposed to be so much more?

Why were they all supposed to have powerful or rewarding work? Why were they all supposed to have loving and beautiful wives? Why were they all supposed to be exempt from recessions or layoffs or just plain old bad luck?

Why were they supposed to have everything when everybody can see that there has never been enough everything to go around?

Being rejected by girls will be a valid reason as to why a white man drives his car into a group of women. Being laid off will be a valid reason as to why a white man opens fire in an office. Being “frustrated” will be a valid reason as to why a white man leaves bombs on the doorsteps of black families. Being unpopular will be a valid reason as to why a white man shoots up a school.

But living in systemic poverty with no job prospects won’t be a valid reason for why a black man sells loose cigarettes on the street. Being frustrated by constant harassment by police officers won’t be a valid reason for why a black woman refuses to put out her cigarette at a traffic stop. Living in a neighborhood with no jobs, no infrastructure, underfunded schools, and no dependable police presence won’t ever be considered a valid reason for higher crime rates in black and brown neighborhoods.

Because we were never supposed to expect any of those things. We were never supposed to expect jobs or police protection or investment in our communities or quality education. We were never supposed to expect to see ourselves in movies or read about our heroism in novels.

Whatever there was to expect — we weren’t supposed to expect any of it to come to us.

And white men expected more of it to come to them than ever existed.

And as I watch white men scramble to justify the brutality they visit upon the rest of the world in rage over a life that they think they lost, even though it never was and was never going to be theirs I sometimes wonder what is worse?

Having to fight to get what you’ve been told you have no right to ask for? Having to fight for your very humanity and your right to exist?

Or fighting to punish those who you think stole something from you that never actually existed and throwing your comforts and privileges to the ground in disgust because they insult the greatness you’ll never achieve?

I don’t know. I mean - I do know. Because the rage that ruins these white men’s joy and consumes their mediocre beings and turns them violent will turn on me and countless other black people, brown people, disabled people, queer people, trans people, and women of every demographic. Because while I have to fight for my life and the lives of my community members I will also have to fight an angry white man who thinks that somehow I, or someone like me, got that bit of success or talent or visibility that was destined for him. That somehow, while dealing with micro-aggressions, macro-aggressions, a racist school system, education system and entertainment system — while trying to stay healthy with a racist healthcare system and stay employed in a racist employment system — I had time to steal the greatness that he was supposed to be and….I don’t know… smoke it or eat it or something. Because a white man would rather murder strangers who look like me than admit he got conned. And other white men would rather call it justified than ridiculous and pathetic.

And it is ridiculous and pathetic.

Maybe instead of telling white men they can be anything and they can have everything, we should start asking why they ever thought that everything was there to be had and why they ever thought they deserved it in the first place.