Janelle Gray's Blog, page 11

The Troll Under the Rainbow Bridge

After writing the article "Navigating Through Pride and Prejudice"  about what it’s like to be black and gay during Pride, I needed to regroup. I had this pit in my stomach and started circling the black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple wagons. I had an existential moment after reading comments on the article and chatter within the “Social Thunder dome” (aka Facebook and Twitter). Most of the feedback was great, encouraging and what I kind of expected. When you learned how to tap dance for “the audience” at an early age, you instinctively start speaking in a more accommodating second tongue. The self-fulfilling prophecy of “the magical negro” has always been my pop cultural destiny. The struggle is real and the burden is black.   Like I mentioned, some of the feedback was uber positive; but there were a couple of valid points that some astute strangers made in the comment section of the article that kept me awake…until I took an Ambien. For all the discrimination and prejudice, I lamented on in my first article, there was no acknowledgment of the disabled community and their struggles. Even though I, myself, am not disabled, if I was going to get on a gay soap box about equal representation, I might want to make sure I’m not showcasing the same bias that was such a sore point for myself. I, therefore, am a troll.According to Urban Dictionary, a troll is “one who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument.” You have no idea how much it hurts to admit this. If I look past the embarrassment, it’s cathartic as hell.As a troll, I scuttled from under my gay rainbow bridge during the month of June just to uncover some foul truths that normally avoid the light of day. The source of truth for all trolls is a point of frustration. Something has royally pissed us off. We leverage the inter-webs as a kingdom of clicks, conversions, keywords and conversations.What was I so frustrated about? What turned me into a Shrek-like, fire-breathing troll monster? I honestly think it was the almost dumbfounded responses I empirically observed about the revised gay flag that now (clutch your pearls) included a black and brown strip. Keep in mind, there have been countless variations of the gay flag: a flag with heart and crossed bones, a peace sign, smiley face, double Venus symbols, cowboy hats and even a bloody Hello Kitty. But we are going to have a call to arms about two color stripes? B!#$h please.I am not naïve enough to think this newly-designed flag will change closed minds but it makes a statement. A statement I feel is personally addressed to those that look like me. It simply says, “We see, we thank you and love you. You’re home.”  Some of the most powerful milestones for the LGBTQ community involved people of color. Two hidden figures who made an impact that night during the Stonewall Inn riots were transgender women of color: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. This flag is not just for me. I haven’t done anything amazing for our community but there are too many unsung heroes that should be honored, known and celebrated.The core of my frustration is more systemic. There are times when the right words escape me. I look to better writers and thinkers that have successfully encapsulated how I feel. I was frustrated by the digital backlash about the flag, the black and brown hidden figures in the gay community and the lack of representation in hearing our stories.Franchesca Ramsey, the chocolate Khaleesi of comedy, was interviewed in September of 2016 for Vox. In this glowing article, Ramsey said about being black, “Our frustration comes from not being able to tell our own stories.” That’s why I am not only an unapologetically angry, black gay man but a furious troll. The fellow trolls that threw shade on my previous article are not what stopped me dead in my tracks. It was people who know me (well) critiquing my own story. I didn’t ask, need or require their opinion to write or publish my story. If anyone feels so strongly, please publish your own article on the Grand Rapids Rapidian or here on The Echoes Blog. It’s not that hard. Validation is for parking not my opinion-piece.I almost feel this is my humble reprieve because I became (in record-timing) an internet troll.I had the best intentions but even the best intentions can lead to digital / editorial purgatory. While I was writing my sophomoric attempt at an opinion-piece, I had dreams of grandeur. I wanted to be Aunt Viv from seasons one through three of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the popular sitcom starring Will Smith. The original Aunt Viv was woke, regal, relatable and most of all real. Instead, I didn’t stick the editorial landing and turned out to more like the Aunt Viv from seasons four to six; one-dimensional, conservative and basic as hell. For that, and only that, I apologize.Whether I’m a troll, unicorn, your magical negro or the true Supreme, these words from the reigning hottie humanitarian and crowned “Woke Bae,” Jesse William ring true, “just because we’re magic, doesn’t mean we’re not real.”Follow Kwesi on Twitter @kwesirobertson. One love!

When Love Hurts

I grew up in a household with a mother who was young and still trying to find herself and a dad who was worried about who he was going to screw next. My mom was 18 when she had me and my dad, who had been in the army for 5 years, was 23.When my dad entered the room, I could see my mom automatically adjust her body position and what she was doing. I wasn’t sure what this meant but I knew from an early age that something wasn’t right. When I was 3 years old, my dad moved my mom and I to Germany. Once we got to Germany that’s where the abuse, both verbal and physical, started for her.I remember one night my dad came home from the barracks (or at least that’s what he said) and my mom was cooking dinner. As soon as he walked through the door he started to yell at her, “Bitch, what is this slop that you’re making!?!” I remember seeing my mom straighten her body and say, “Well if you don’t eat it then you can fucking starve!” Without missing a beat my dad backhanded my mom and she landed across the room on the floor.I was standing right in the doorway watching what he did. He turned to see me and quickly picked me up and took me to my room. The apartment walls were so thin that I could hear my mom softly sobbing. I looked out the door to make sure my dad was nowhere in sight and ran over and hugged my mom. She began to cry even harder. She whispered to me, “I’m sorry for being so weak baby! I’ve got to get stronger to protect you.”When I was 9, we moved back to our hometown and my mom told my dad that she wanted a divorce. Since he had been screwing other women, he didn’t care. He walked away from my mom and me for that fact. This would ultimately shape the way that I thought love was supposed to be. There would be moments I would talk to my dad about seeing me and he would never show up. There would be holidays that he was supposed to be there and he would never come. That eventually made me cold and bitter towards people who actually loved me.Growing up in small town with a very strict upbringing didn’t really allow me an opportunity to be who I was. Being gay and black in a small town that was predominately white posed its own set of problems.It was at college that I met my best friend John. He took me to my first gay club. I had never been away from home and I was super naïve. While we were driving to the club John looks over at me and says, “Omg I have the perfect guy for you to meet! He’s going to be there tonight.” I looked over at him and said, “Stop the car and let me out. I’m not doing it.” We both knew I was joking but I was super nervous.We walked into this club and I felt like I was home. The music was pumping, the drinks were flowing and there were boys dancing with boys, girls dancing with girls and drag queens. We made our rounds around the club and John whispered in my ear, “There he is!” He points to the go-go dancers on the box and says, “He’s the one in the red speedo!” I will say upon my first glance at Todd, he was one of the sexiest dudes I had ever met; but I didn’t know the trouble that he would cause at this point.We walk over and John introduces me to Todd who says, “Hi beautiful!” I shyly look away and say, “Hi.” We all sit around and talk for a while and then he asks me if I want to dance. Once we get on the dance floor we are grinding against each other, we are both sweating and hormones are raging. I push him away and run off the dance floor. He comes to find me and ask what is wrong. He says, “Can I have your phone number?” With a little hesitation I give it to him. He calls the next day, comes over and we hangs out. He starts to kiss me and unzip my pants and I push him away and say, “No I’m not ready.” I can tell by his body language he is mad and he walks out the door. This is the moment I should have known he would be trouble.We hadn’t seen each other for a year when we ran into each other at the same club. He sees me and runs over and gives me a big hug. We start to talk and decide that we could give it another chance. In the beginning our relationship is great. We talk all the time, laugh, spend tons of time together and eventually we even have sex. My first time. Someone should have told me that I would get so attached. One night I was walking into the bathroom and there stood Todd, snorting a line of cocaine. He said, “Babe, just go back to the room!”As our relationship progressed, his drug abuse got worse and the verbal abuse started. He would call me stupid, worthless. He would yell at me because the drugs were yelling at him.I vividly remember the event that ended our relationship. I had just gotten home from work and was working on a paper when Todd and our mutual friend got home. They had been at a rave and had done TONS of drugs. I was in the living room talking to Todd’s roommate when we heard the bed squeaking. I walked in the room and there was Todd, having sex with our friend. In that moment I was frozen and only saw red. I scream, “What the fuck!” As I’m picking up a lamp to throw it. I realize what I’m doing and grab all of my stuff to walk out.I run out to my car in the pouring rain and remember him saying one thing, “If I don’t love you now, then I probably never will.” Those words stuck with me forever and would be how I would gauge falling in love for years and years. It would be the reason I would miss out on great relationships because of the fear of hearing those words.We were lucky that it didn’t escalate the way it had with my parents. People have asked me why I didn’t report the abuse. But I was scared no one would believe me. People focus on the gay in the relationship. But that’s not the point. This wasn’t gay domestic abuse anymore than my parents’ was straight domestic abuse. For that fact, I responded the same way my mom always had years before; I stayed quiet.Still, was the fear of no one believing me? Or was it that they would believe me but not pay attention because I was gay?

Be appropriate...don't appropriate

I am 18; perched on a wooden stool overlooking the Plaza de Armas in Cusco. I turn back to my hot chocolate (I’m in the chocolate museum.. naturally), when I notice someone taking a photo of me out of my periphery. He wasn’t particularly subtle about it. He had a large SLR camera and possibly a tripod. I kept sipping my chocolate trying not to break the candid shot. His camera snapped the little white girl swamped by an enormous orange, red and yellow ceremonial style poncho, “candidly” sipping her hot chocolate.Meanwhile the bustle of Cusco whirled beneath us, peppered with chaos, hippy tourists and indigenous children dressed in their best skirts posing for photos. A tang of inequality and privilege lay masked beneath the magic of the mountain village.Years later when I look back at that photograph, I have a mix of emotions. Fond memories of the photographer and a love for the random encounters that travel brings. But now, with the gift of hindsight, it reeks of cultural appropriation. The kind that was pointed out to me when I returned to the Plaza de Armas 4 years later.Sitting on a bench in the plaza, I started talking with an old Cusceno man. He told me with disgust how the tourists had overrun this beautiful town and pushed the local people out. He explained how everything about his sacred culture was being capitalised upon by eclectically dressed gringos. He told me how his mother (earth) was being trampled upon by tourists every day, how his culture was disintegrating, and his people were being pushed further away. His story gave me uncomfortable flashbacks to the 18-year-old girl sitting in her oversized poncho.Around this time, stories had been popping up in the media about festival goers in the US wearing the Native American headdresses as “costume.” This was a real red flag for cultural appropriation and upon reading those articles I surely shook my head in disappointment at those people. Listening to this man in Cusco square brought me the uncomfortable realisation that I had been one of those people and led me to question how many other cultural appropriation faux pas’ I had made along my travels.****I am 20 years old; roaming, or rather bustling, through the streets of New Delhi, India. I am with my friend who is another 20-year-old white Australian lady. Between the two of us, we do not have even a semblance of a plan past the first night’s accommodation. The leering of large groups of Indian men greeted us with as much furore as the incessant honking of New Deli traffic. We had been advised to wear a fake wedding ring and to casually incorporate a fake husband into our standardised story. A Nepalese man called Om told us that wearing the red bindi in the centre of the forehead meant “married.” So, in an attempt to fit in, we started wearing the red bindi beneath our pashmina scarves. We received strange looks from the women and possibly attracted even more curious stares from the men. They would ask us if we knew what it meant, we said, "of course,”and inserted our pre-rehearsed story about our fake husband in Australia.Coming back to Australia, the yoga boom and activewear trend had just skyrocketed. So I too had the ‘boho chic’ look. Walking around the streets of Bondi I would see the occasional boho fashionista adorned with a sparkly bindi on her third eye. And I will admit to having tried it on the occasion. Later, I would meet one of my closest friends, who so happened to be born in Punjab. She is also a designer and understands the ins and outs of fashion vs appropriation. When I heard her perspectives on the random trending of bindis in western fashion, the uncomfortable feeling hit me again. It was undoubtedly another form of cultural appropriation. The type that uses privilege to assume a kind of ownership over cultural artefacts, behaviours or products, without having any real understanding or connection to them. It's a way of capitalising or tokenizing one part of a culture for the benefit or amusement of someone who is not of that culture, whilst simultaneously discriminating or denigrating other parts of that same culture to “second best.”**** I am 22. I am walking out of the hairdressing salon somewhere in the south of Bogota. In the time it had taken the hairdresser to insert tonnes of extensions and box braid my wispy, fine hair, the daylight had shrugged away and the already very dodgy street appeared like something out of a bad TV series. I put my hood up and walked as fast as I could without running towards the main street. I hadn't even had time to scope out my new hair. But this was the third time I had braided my hair so I was almost used to the extra weight pulling on my neck.I squeezed onto the transmilenio (the Colombian bus system) and took off my hood. I didn’t need a mirror. The perplexed gazes of the other commuters was enough. This time I felt it straight away. That same uncomfortable feeling that I had speaking to the Cusceno man hit me right in the gut on my way home that night. I had braided my hair for the first time in Senegal, with the family I was staying with, and I lasted all of 3 days with the insane weight of the hair. The second time, in Sydney, my friends had done it for me, and it had helped with my dancing. My costumes fitted better and I felt more ‘me’ somehow.This time was different. I did it because I wanted a different look. I wanted to feel more me again. But somehow it didn't work this time. It made me feel uncomfortable. One Afro-Colombian lady actually stopped me on the street and told me how much she liked my hair, but there was still something wrong. In the hair salon, there had been a few other customers, all of whom were from Chocó (a remote department of Colombia with strong Afro-descendiente roots), and all of them wanting to change their natural hair. None of them wanted braids. They were all eyeing off a silky smooth straight black wig piece that had just come in.Later in the year, I visited Chocó and saw the difference between Afro hair in the city versus in Chocó. In Chocó, the people took enormous pride in their hair. Each child had different braids, with their own design and flavour. Many of the adults wore braids or natural hair compared to Bogota where the majority of Afro-Colombians seemed to opt for the straightened or long,weave look.As luck would have it I soon met another incredible woman, who happens to be the author of Echoes of the Struggle. We had some great discussions about cultural appropriation and in specific black hair and hair braiding. Her non-judgemental, yet informative and honest way of discussing these issues again filled me with that uncomfortable feeling of being an appropriator. But this time, I feel like the penny really dropped. I took my braids out. And I have no desire to put them back in. I still enjoy dressing creatively and I love colours. But now I check myself for appropriation. I check in with my “look” to make sure I’m not taking from anybody in order to achieve something for myself.**** I am 24. I still love to travel and dress and dance in a certain way, and I dare say I’m just about to meet someone who will pull me up on a new layer of appropriation or privileged I can still not see. But I do feel like I can make the distinction between appreciation and appropriation. It's a feeling. Appropriation leaves you with the sense of entitlement, ignorance or shame. Appreciation leaves you with a buzz, a sense of connection and mutual interaction where both people learn and share with one another. Appreciation is based on respect. Appropriation is based on entitlement or lack of awareness.The key to being an appreciator and not an appropriator lies in self awareness and in listening. Educate yourself. Be open to discussions with people from every walk of life. Be prepared to change if you are called up on your appropriation and privilege. Call others up on it when you can. Appreciate culture in a respectful and genuine way. Give credit where credit is due. And call a spade a spade.If you happen upon something new which looks or feels amazing, chances are it has been around for a while. If it looks like something “exotic” or “cultural,” chances are it was not invented by new age white hippies of the 21st century. Look beyond where you find something, and recognise its real roots and context.Check your privilege. Just because box braiding may be acceptable or trendy now, remember that historically and presently many people of color could be refused work for wearing their natural or braided hair. While a white model wearing a bindi may be perceived as elegant and desirable, an Indian woman wearing a bindi in a western context may be categorised as foreign and unrelatable. Cultures are sacred and complex. Regardless of your culture, think twice before tokenizing something that is someone’s sacred identity. If you are allowed the opportunity to share and interact with other cultures, be an appreciator not an appropriator. To keep up with Geneviève, follow her blog at  and like her Facebook page .

Dear All Lives Matter,

©All A Gray Area 2016 All Rights Reserved.Video contains graphic contentExactly one year ago, I sat on the patio of coffee shop in Colombia. I cried. Not just because there was another unnecessary shooting of someone who could have been my brother. But because I felt broken and detached; broken by fear and detached from family and friends who would understand that fear. Then, in my new home, even with its own form of racism, I couldn't quite make people understand why two deaths in one week shook my world in a way that devolved me to tears. And so, I did what I normally do when I feel this way; I wrote. I penned a poetic letter to the All Lives Matter movement.Update - No justice for Philando CastileJuly 6, 2016Billie’s Strange Fruit ain’t hangin from the trees.Now it’s lying dead in the streetsSo sometimes I turn off my phone. And I sit.I stay still and quiet, just like they want me to be.I mute my anger and fear. I silence my sadness.And I listen…I listen to names as far back as those unknown whose blood soaked the ground we were expected to hoe.I watch as videos turn from grainy, black and white to crystal clear color.I feel. I sit. And I feel. Not anger, not fear, not sadness. I just feel. And it’s the most heartbreaking, gut-wrenching thing I can do because the list continues to grow.The names are written down in tears colored by anguishAnd I wonder, how can you not stand with us.I wonder why you are angry that we scream.Why is self-defense considered aggression when that rule applied to only one group is so clearly oppression?She said we get mad when they try to erase slavery from the books, but our children will know. The plantations are now our men in orange and the new 3/5 rule is “We’ll take them to court but we won’t convict.”Replace Plessy with Jesse and you got another light-skinned dude telling his truth refusing to stay in a box created by and more comfortable for you.It’s bountiful when it comes to passing out benefits of the doubt,Then they get to people who look like me and run clean out.Langston Hughes said we were docile and kind but to be careful when we change our minds. And the time is now.Somewhere along the way, my people tried to pass the torch.And because the lessons of the world they wished for us were mixed with the realities of the world we live in, we were slow to grab it.We sat in our integrated schools, lived in multi-racial neighborhoods, loved in our interracial relationships and failed to realize these were only scraps.And as the blood continues to pour out, I’m claiming my place at the table.I’m eating the meal I deserve not the one they choose to give.And I know they will try to silence my voice. Detract from my words. I know I may be painted as a villain because that’s easier to convict.It feels like I’m damned if I do but I’m already damned because I didn’t.So sometimes I turn off my phone. And I sit.I prepare to no longer stay quiet like they want me to be.I turn up my anger and fear. I scream my sadness.And I want you to listen….Keep asking me why I talk about it so much. Keep wondering why I’m angry.And I’ll tell you it’s because…Billie’s Strange Fruit ain't hangin from the trees no more.It’s lying dead in the streetsFor more poetry by Janelle, grab her book Mosaic: Pieces in Poetry.

Navigating Through Pride and Prejudice

Some of my gay friends and I see Pride month differently. Very differently. According to them, I get two months: February, for Black History month, and June, for Pride. I should feel honored, right? I have inherited the powerful but not as alluring legacy of both Hidden Figures and Stonewall.While my less chubby friends rejoice this month in a cacophony of Britney Spears, vodka tonics and rainbow flags being flown in crowded gayborhoods across the nation, my own celebration in quitter and more sobering. As I “Yas Kween” the newly-designed gay flag, my dear, but oblivious friends, chant, “not my flag” to the same rhythm with which we defiantly chanted “not my president” a few months ago.The inclusion of the black and brown stripes represents the existence of black and brown people in the gay community; which might be a shock. Except for RuPaul, gay people of color are discriminated against in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways in our very own community. How the f*ck does that work?How many times have you heard at bars or dating apps, “not into blacks, white only, it’s just my preference.” Or my personal favorite, “Chocolate makes me break out!” Don’t get it twisted. We have these hurtful preferences for weight, height, etc. but my devotion to my thick and juicy bromos, runs deep. Because I’m not just a member of this bootlicious brotherhood; but I’m the Supreme. That was my first and last attempt in humor in this article. Enjoy that laugh.So, while my ripped friends paint their 30-day Pride Month world in rainbows, unicorns and glitter, I sit in an entirely different reality that melds being gay and black into weird hues of social-political-cultural nuances. The colors that paint my world may fly in contrast to yours. My world is Bland, Brown and Gray. My world is not a celebration at times but a proclamation to resist, scream, shout, cry and get in formation. I also must do this while simultaneously gently stroking my comrade-in-arms’ “white frailty” and insisting that just because I’m pro-black doesn’t mean I’m not anti-white (come on, my boyfriend of five years is whiter than Jon Snow’s direwolf on Game of Thrones). Because I’m pro-gay doesn’t mean that I’m anti-straight (believe it or not, my mom and dad are straight). And because I’m pro-Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean I’m anti-cops (I have dated an assortment of law enforcement; which might be more fetish than anything else, but you get what I’m saying).So before you get your Marco Marco underwear in a bunch, I love my gay community. I gayly grew up in the magical realm of Oaklawn Avenue in Dallas, my OG (original gayborhood). As a young gay boy, I was embraced by friends that showed me the way. Seriously, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them. In the gay world, I learned that being an outsider was actually great. Even more than great, it was empowering. Why be everyone’s cup of tea when you could be couture? My unapologetically “me” aura came from my gay forefathers and drag mothers. I love being gay. I love my community.So what about my black community? I have felt like an outsider in our traditional community because I was always different. Whether that was being bullied in elementary school and being called an “African Booty Scratcher” or for always knowing I was, in fact, different.My mom is and has always been the definition of WOKE. I was surrounded by black authors, poets and inventors before I even knew who George Washington was. The black community experience wasn’t lost on me. It’s something I can’t hide or discount. But there have been many turns where I have been discounted or on the edge of losing my “black card” because of what I think, who I love and how I talk. This, ultimately, has been so suffocating that it’s so hard to co-exist. But I have no choice because my black community is my family.Being gay in this world is difficult enough without your own community relegating you to the black section. Being black is hard enough without people challenging your “blackness.”How black is my black community? Who are you to judge or validate? My black is being called a n*gger while walking my nephew across the street in Garland, TX at the age of 16. My black is my mom recalling stories of bricks being thrown through her window while she was one of the only black Masters in southern Champaign, IL. My black is learning at an early age what a sundown town was. My black is the innate fear of driving anywhere no matter how updated my license, insurance or car is.But we have the ability to make gay America great again. (See what I did there?) We have to. Because, my black, like my gay, is unnegotiable.If you would like to connect, talk or discuss RuPaul’s Drag Race, please follow me on Twitter @kwesirobertson. One love!

Ain't No Half Steppin': Assimilate or Advocate (Part 2)

If there was only one notable lesson that we African Americans could gain from our parents, it would be the fact that we are called to be great. Once again, history has proven that. Because of the obstacles that were faced with regards to race and identity coupled with the resilience to combat said obstacles, there have been countless black men and women who have become pioneers, inventors, creatives, and overall iconic figures.However, there is a reality that every black person is a part of. This reality called “black hierarchy” is a term used to describe the status and influence that blacks obtain or relinquish as a result of trust that has been established within the black spaces. Similar to the nature of any relationship, if one’s trust were broken, the black male or female’s status and influence would shift to a less favorable position within the black hierarchy. Labels such as sell-out, uncle tom, coon, and bougie are given to those who have, in some way, broken trust.What intrigues me is the rationale behind the labels that black men and women put on each other. Has trust been broken because they have failed to advocate for the community?Also, when success and fame is attributed to one’s name, the limelight surely follows. This limelight may also blind these successful black men and women from the reality of the “common man.” Depending on what has propelled their careers, some successful black men may assimilate without knowing they had done so.A recent online exchange reprised the idea of being black and successful while at the same time being labelled “too black.” During an interview about the film Get Out, actor Samuel L. Jackson said the following about black British actor, Daniel Kaluuya playing an African American without personally relating to having the black American experience: “There are a lot of black British actors that work in this country. All the time. I tend to wonder what would that movie have been with an American brother who really understands that in a way. Because Daniel grew up in a country where they’ve been interracial dating for a hundred years. Britain, there’s only about eight real white people left in Britain… So what would a brother from America made of that role? I’m sure the director helped. Some things are universal, but everything ain’t.”This sparked a debate online. The comments were polarizing. But Kaluuya responded:“When I’m around black people, I’m made to feel ‘other’ because I’m dark-skinned. I’ve had to wrestle with that, with people going, ‘You’re too black.’ Then I come to America, and they say, ‘You’re not black enough.’ I go to Uganda, I can’t speak the language. In India, I’m black. In the black community, I’m dark-skinned. In America, I’m British. Bro!”Due to his ancestral ties with Uganda, I cannot assume that he is a child of the African Diaspora, but the plight is still the same. Kaluuya’s responses is a sentiment that many black men and women share. His struggle was to either assimilate to appease those who deemed him “too black” or advocate for his own identity and blackness. Can he just be? No. No he cannot.When we dissect comments made by other successful black men we find they are doing one of two things: assimilating to those who are in their realms of power or advocating for their culture and community. Morgan Freeman, a well-known African American actor,  made some comments about Black History Month that caused some of the black community to feel slighted.Freeman: I don’t want a Black History Month. Black History is American History.Mike Wallace: How are we going to get rid of racism until…Freeman: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman.Within this exchange lies colorblindness; the inability or refusal to acknowledge one’s race and ethnicity while simultaneously keeping systemic racism intact. Clearly, Freeman is not advocating for a month to celebrate, remind, and challenge our black counterparts to contribute to a progressive future. Instead, he has relegated his own identity to being only a successful man. Negating his blackness while still embracing fame and influence is a result of his privilege of being a successful black man.Let us tumble a bit deeper down the rabbit hole. At the root of this systemic threat to black folk is none other than white supremacy; the mentality that upholds the racist notion that whiteness is equated to purity. To my white and non-black friends who may be reading this: do not be alarmed. Be challenged. Be aware that standards, desirability, and justice is in your favor.As a black man or woman, we are well aware of these components that uphold white supremacy because we have been conditioned to measure our self worth by these opposing standards. We are able to assess it from the margin. However, advocacy for equality is still attainable.To assimilate to standards set by “the powers that be” is simply to stay as quiet and as compliant as you can. However, there are those who have set the standard for what it looks like to be an advocate for rights, justice, and equality. Trust me, those pioneers were not quiet at all. They have been actively questioning the norms and traditions of America.Some of you who are reading this may be asking: What does advocacy look like today? It is quite visible. Regarding well known black men and women, it happens when you see Colin Kaepernick giving away free dress suits to black men who must present themselves in front of the court of law. It happens when you see and hear Angela Rye contribute her voice  intelligently and relentlessly as a commentator with regards to politics and race relations. For those who are less known, it happens when we decide to be ourselves unabashedly. Assimilate or advocate? You know the answer. We are called to be great. To ‘help step’ is simply not putting forth your best effort. In the words of Big Daddy Kane, “ain’t no half-steppin.”To keep up with Justin, subscribe to his youtube channel, The Black Curriculum, here.

Finally, A Wonder Woman Movie

...And it's all about menEditor's Note: The subscripts are everything! And you should pay attention to those almost as much as the article itself.Yes, fellow feminists, it’s true. Due to a handful of female-only screenings of the new Wonder Woman movie that took place recently, some delicate snowflakes[1] are simply so wounded by their barring from these specific screenings of a female-centric movie[2] that they’re declaring reverse sexism the new normal. On message boards and in letters to their politicians, they cry, ‘We have dealt with this unfair treatment for *DAYS* now[3] and we are FED UP!’Okay, men, okay. We hear you. Our auditory skills are not the issue at hand here. I actually have some empathy for where you are finding yourselves right now! I know how shitty sexism can feel, and believe it or not, I once found myself in a similar pair of shoes on a different topic. Allow me to explain.Growing up in a tiny town in Ohio as homogenous as mine was, I was spared any real critical thinking when it came to diversity. Crossing paths with anyone outside of the white, cis-gendered, middle class, Republican, straight, and Catholic or at least Christian norm was like brushing shoulders with a unicorn at the Wal-Mart, and that person was generally treated with, at best, a open-mouthed stare.Most, however, didn’t include little me. I considered myself a feminist long before I knew what word meant, much to the chagrin of my father, and all on my own. I was going to be bastion of open-mindedness, dammit, and I hoped beyond hope that I would one day be able to escape my white suburbia move to the city of my dreams, New York, and finally live side by side with a cornucopia of people different from me, creating art and basically living the storyline of RENT, sans the disease, of course.[4]  After all, I was a friend and protector to the sole little girl of color in my elementary school that was regularly bullied and shunned, I once dressed as a suffragette for Halloween, my family was one of the few in our town that *didn’t* go to church, and I was deeply involved in the local community theater in which MULTIPLE gay men participated! Come ON! So when I was clicking through the channels at my friend’s house one day in my tweens and came across BET[5], I was DUMBFOUNDED. BLACK entertainment television?!  Isn’t that RACIST? Why would they get their own channel? Aren’t we divided enough without making a separate TV STATION about it? This was bullshit!!! Of course, a number of years and endlessly patient friends of color later, I came to realize that although it lacked the official name[6], white peoples’ television was just TELEVISION. Basically ALL of it.We don’t see the forest for the trees, but white people, especially men, don’t exactly lack representation in any aspect of the media. To this day, save for a few shows like Blackish and seemingly endless vehicles for good old atheist-hating, wrong-beauty-queen-crowning Steve Harvey, TV is still so, so, so white. BET took nothing from my experience of TV as a white person, and it added to others’ lives. I’d call that a win.What I and many other people of privilege have learned is that when minorities have a chance to connect with one another, an opportunity to have a voice and to be seen, to celebrate who and what they are, like in the oft-maligned ‘safe spaces’ that some have objections to, it takes literally nothing away from those already in the majority. It may feel as if it does, because they may have to *slightly* change something they do or a way that they think, but that isn’t ACTUALLY encroaching on them at all; that’s just called LEARNING! And do you know what the cool thing is? That means that, quite the opposite from how it may feel at first, you are EXPANDING your horizons! It’s growth! You get MORE, and OTHER people get more too! Isn’t that cool?!So no, I don’t believe that female-only screenings of Wonder Woman are a symptom of an anti-male society, filled with ‘reverse sexism’ that ignores the needs of males. I believe in giving a few inches of space to a group of people[7] who have been previously underserved *read in movie premiere voice* IN A WORLD, WHERE MEN DOMINATE THE MOVIE BUSINESS, ESPECIALLY IN ACTION AND COMIC-BASED FILMS. And hey, guess what, we live in a country that allows us all the freedom to do almost anything we want to do, so if these menz want to host a no-girls-allowed screening of every film ever made by men, for men[8], I say DO IT! I guarantee you women won’t care. More power to ya, boys! We’d be in a suddenly blissfully MRA[9]-free world, much like Wonder Woman’s all-female home, Themyscira, far away from the Patriarch’s World[10], and we’d no longer NEED screenings such as these.Until then?Privately screen on, ladies.[1] Men. Some of them, anyway.[2] A film that they could, of course, easily see on other screens in the same building or in movie theaters across the world. But NOOOOOOOOO.[3] Try it on for 9,000-ish years and then get back to us, okay boys? [4] Of course, what looked like Sesame Street in my 10 year old head turned out to be, 12 years later, me desperately signing last-minute on an apartment I could barely afford across the street from a pizza shop that served as a front for a burgeoning drug kingpin in a building full of Dominican families (they looked BLACK but spoke SPANISH, I had no idea that was possible and my twenty-something gringa brain was muy confundido for a few weeks), one of which I displaced when I moved into my newly slightly-renovated-for-the-white-girl apartment complete with heat (!) and roommates (roaches y ratones) and successfully growing up into the gentrifying hipster I never realized I’d dreamed I’d become. ‘Why don’t these families LIKE me,’ I wondered, as now-homeless Aunt Somebody glared at me walking up 6 flights of stairs to her old apartment.[5] All music channels were blocked in my house to keep my delicate sensibilities shielded from the evil influences they presented. It pissed me off to no end at the time, but looking back, I’m thankful for at least being spared a metric shit-ton of lame-ass early reality TV programming and garbage pop music.[6] WET would be an awkward thing to name a station anyway, it implies less ‘White Entertainment Television’ and more awkward 90’s girls-washing-cars softcore videos, not to mention how mind numbingly boring 24 hours of The Lawrence Welk Show, Duck Dynasty and Seinfeld reruns and bowling and fishing tournaments would be.[7] Literally 50% of the world’s population.[8] I cannot IMAGINE how long it would take to see EVERY male-dominated movie. Siri? [9] Mens’ Rights Activist, for those blesssssssssssed enough not to know what that acronym means. Can I have your life?[10] Of both WW comic book fame and EVERY DAY FOR EVERY WOMAN ON EARTHFor more fabulousness from Tara, check out her blog at https://allsparklyandshit.com

Finding My Voice

I was born and raised in the DFW Metroplex in Texas. I’m a pale white girl, with strawberry blonde hair and lots of freckles. And while I wasn’t persecuted growing up based on what I looked like or who I was on the outside, I had a deep-seated fear that I would be if people only knew the real me.See, I wasn’t like everyone else around me. First off, I was a Mormon. And there weren’t that many of us. Growing up, I had many conversations with friends trying to “save me” because they truly believed that Mormons weren’t really Christians. But the second thing that sets me apart from most of the people that I grew up with is that I’m gay.Looking back, all the signs were there. While other girls’ walls were covered with pictures of boy bands and teen heartthrobs like New Kids on the Block, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Jonathan Brandis, mine was covered with pictures of women I admired like Shannon Miller, Mia Hamm, Rebecca Lobo, etc. As a young Mormon kid, I didn’t have the vocabulary to verbalize what I really thought about these women: that they were hella attractive. I could only say that I really looked up to them and admired them; which was true. They were out there killing it at what they did! But there was more to it than that.In high school, I knew I liked girls but was terrified of it. So much so that, as a senior, I walked out of my creative writing class when our teacher used a clip from Will & Grace, because it “promoted the homosexual agenda.” In reality, I was just a really scared, gay Mormon kid who was sure that if I showed too much interest, people would figure out my deep dark secret.Funnily enough, it took going to the big Mormon college, Brigham Young University, to finally come out to myself. BYU is located in Provo, Utah. It was there that I finally found myself. I looked up LGBT resources and there was the Utah Pride Center in Salt Lake. At the time, I was still young enough to participate in their youth center and that place changed my life. I remember the first time I walked in and was asked if I was gay or straight. I said I wasn’t really ready to answer that question and no one blinked an eye. They got it. They got me. They understood the internal process I was going through and were there for me when I needed people who understood that the most.When I started at BYU in 2005, a portion of the honor code read as follows:“Advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle (whether implied or explicit) or any behaviors that indicate homosexual conduct, including those not sexual in nature, are inappropriate and violate the Honor Code.”This meant that if you were a gay BYU student, you couldn't even admit it out loud without fear of being kicked out of school. There were multiple instances where the Honor Code Office looked at my friends. Others and I would be called in to find out whether or not they were gay. When called in, we would deny that they were gay to help save their academic standing. It was a big, gay witch-hunt.I started getting politically involved when I joined the BYU Democrats and other left leaning groups. A group called Soulforce was doing a seven-week, national bus tour called “The Equality Ride.” The Equality Riders made 19 stops and visited 18 religious schools; and BYU was one of those 18 schools. At each of these institutions, there was a lot of discrimination against the LGBTQ+ population. The riders’ goal was to challenge homophobia and help the LGBTQ+ community achieve freedom from religious and political oppression.At the time, Equality Ride co-director Haven Herrin said that BYU had one of the toughest, most stringent policies. The purpose was not to demand any change in policy, but to bring about understanding of what it’s like to be LGBTQ+. There is a lot of shame and suffering, brought on by religious-based discrimination.A group of both Soulforce riders and BYU students marched around the edge of campus, as they were prohibited from actually entering campus by BYU police, and staged a “die in” near the main entrance. They lie down and placed lilies on their chest representing LGBTQ+ Mormons who had died by suicide.One of the high profile LGBTQ+ Mormon suicides at that time was Stuart Matis; a 32-year-old who committed suicide on the steps of a Mormon church. His note rings true for many LGBTQ+ Mormons.“…The church has no idea that as I type this letter, there are surely boys and girls on their calloused knees imploring God to free them from this pain. They hate themselves. They retire to bed with their finger pointed to their head in the form of a gun. Every waking moment of every day they must be on constant alert not to divulge any clues that will identify themselves to their peers. ‘Was my glance at that boy too long?’ ‘Does he think I'm gay?’ ‘Will he now publicize my secret and beat me up?’ They are afraid of their parents. They are afraid of their bishop. They are afraid of their friends. They have nowhere to go but to lay on the floor curled in a ball and weep themselves to sleep…”At the rally, a friend shared that he spent months in the hospital and rehab after a near-fatal car wreck. He said that during his recovery, his mother told him that it would have been better if he had died in the accident than lived as a gay man. Sadly, this is a common theme. My mother made a similar comment many years before I finally came out to my parents. She said that if she had a gay child, she’d kill herself. And while she doesn’t remember making that comment, it did push me further into the closet and made me afraid of being my authentic self.After the rally, the BYU Police arrested 24 people, among them five students, who participated in the demonstration. I knew then that I, too, needed to be a voice for other LGBTQ+ Mormons.In 2007, the Honor Code was updated to read:"Brigham Young University will respond to homosexual behavior rather than to feelings or orientation and welcomes as full members of the university community all whose behavior meets university standards … One's stated sexual orientation is not an Honor Code issue.”For a moment, it felt as if my friends and I could breathe. We could finally say “I’m gay” out loud without fear of losing our academic standing. Acting on one’s homosexual feelings was still prohibited at BYU; so that meant no dating. But being able to admit it was a huge weight off my shoulders. I started slowly coming out to more friends at school. I told my roommates my last year of school, and they were nothing but kind and accepting. Then California Proposition 8 happened.Prop 8 was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. The Mormon Church publicly supported and funded Prop 8. They set up door-to-door canvassing to encourage the vote for Prop 8 in California. and contributed over $20 million to “protect traditional marriage.”Just when it was getting easier to be a gay BYU student, the university paper printed letters to the editor comparing gay individuals to rapists and murders. Tables encouraging California students to vote for Prop 8 were all over campus. Many guys said that, if they had a gay roommate, they would “beat his face in.”People celebrated when Prop 8 passed; exclaiming that marriage had won. I was heartbroken. I was coming to realize that the LDS church would never want someone like me. Some friends and I went to the protest and marched around Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The signs read “pulpit politics” and “we didn't vote on your marriage." It was a powerful experience to be around other gay Mormons and straight allies. Even though we felt as if we had lost the battle, we were becoming more vocal. We were rallying together and fighting for what we believed in.It took a while to find my voice, but now that I have, I will continue to call out injustices I see and use my voice for good. I am proud of who I am. I am proud of who and how I love. And I will continue to use my voice for good and for acceptance.

I’ll Have Reconciliation, but Hold the Truth

This text is a response to last week’s post, “My Truth,” in which the author, Janelle Gray, writes about her decision not to sugar coat her lived experiences as a black woman for a white audience.Make the medicine go downI am a white teacher and I sometimes get to teach about racism. I’ll be frank: I am not without insecurity. That’s because I know I have blind spots about how racism functions for black people in the US. The only reason why I have any fewer blind spots today than ten years ago is through being exposed to truths like those Janelle writes about in her previous post.This feedback has taken the form of reading articles, having black friends confide in me and hopefully not regret it, seeing arguments, overhearing conversations where black people say, “Oh, and don’t you hate it when white people do this or that?” And yes, sometimes realizing that I’ve been exactly “that person.”White America goes to great lengths to avoid hearing what our actions are like in that other reality. And it will fight tooth and nail for any  explanation other than race or that we do damage. We’ll label black people who speak these truths as trouble-makers who then suffer social, economic, or lethal consequences. The name Kaepernick comes to mind, and if you can name any civil rights leaders killed before their time, you can do the rest of the math.These truths, however, are exactly what we need to hear if we want to be useful to the anti-racism cause. To do that, we must abandon defense mechanisms and build feedback mechanisms.Because the shoe fits me, it fits youA common logical fallacy we exercise is “Because it is this way for me, it is this way, period.” For two years, I lived in another city, abroad, where I was very unhappy. In short, the locals saw their society as a happy-go-lucky party place where everyone was welcome, while I often saw it as close minded, misogynistic, and only welcoming to insiders.Many locals thought, “because I am welcome, my city is welcoming.” But the more accurate truth may be to say that the city is very welcoming for the “right” kind of person (married, kids, impeccably dressed, socially conservative, Catholic or Evangelical), and closed off to those who don’t fit the bill.Because I failed all of those requirements, I constantly got implicit or explicit feedback that I was an error. My local friend who met the requirements, however, praised the city as the best on earth. When I told locals how I felt, the response was frequently: “What do you mean you are not happy in the best place on earth? We are all so nice!”  I wanted to respond, “To each other.”If a society feels welcoming to me, that doesn’t mean it is welcoming. It means it is welcoming if you are me. That a shoe fits you does not mean that those who complain of it chafing are aggressive, overly sensitive, inventing things, or attacking you. It means the shoe chafes them. Probably because it wasn’t built with them in mind.We overcome that logical fallacy by taking seriously people who live other realities and not rejecting their factual observations about life just because it might say something painful about us. We stop telling black people that what they describe isn’t true just because we can’t see it.A mechanism for receiving feedbackWhen I was younger and I got in trouble, I would deny, invent excuses, and throw distracting fits because I couldn’t bear to own up to what I had done. As I got older, I realized how immature that was of me and difficult that was for others. The appropriate response, instead, was recognition, apology, reflection, and improvement. And if the other person was angry, you let them be angry. They had a right.I think most white adults in the US have a normally developed mechanism for taking responsibility for wrongs. That is, in all other areas except for racism. Why? Doctor Robin DiAngelo’s work on white racial identity was key in getting me to recognize these patterns in how we talk about race (links to some articles found at the bottom of this post).In white circles, “I am not racist” tends to be code for “I am a good person.” When somebody tells us, “you were really inconsiderate,” we may feel embarrassed, but we don’t interpret it as “you are a worthless human being.” We may even admit that we were, in fact, really inconsiderate. However, when we hear “that was racist,” we hear, “you are the dregs of humanity.” We deny, defend, and throw fits, because we are completely unwilling to even entertain that possibility. We feel hurt, shame, that our very core has been attacked, and quite frankly, if this is how it is, we don’t even want to participate in anti-racism anymore.But what if people aren’t telling us “you are the dregs of humanity”? but “this thing you do makes it hard for me to comfortably exist”? I think we can entertain that idea without getting defensive, aggressive, or so consumed by our own shame that we quit.Another reason we haven’t developed that mechanism is probably because our elders haven’t. It’s been set up for black people to keep it quiet, not for us to face it. Growing up, when I saw white adults getting feedback on their racism, it often resulted in repeated denials, defense of one’s character, and counter-attacks against the speaker. Rarely did I see anybody model healthy apology, introspection and responsibility, even if they did so in response to other wrongs.Many white people also interpret that feedback as “you, person born in 1984, have to be punished for centuries of mistreatment.” We often respond with “I didn’t invent racism. I didn’t choose to be born into the white/aggressor side,” or a favorite of white immigrants who move to the US (yours truly!), “I just got here. I didn’t start this. Why am I tasked with fixing it?” It may be helpful, if we feel this way, to remember that even though we did not individually mastermind global warming, we live in a society where just the normal things of life - driving, plastics, clothing - help further climate change. There are lots of things we did not consciously choose that we still participate in or exacerbate. The difficult task is to figure out how to not participate, to subvert, to do what we can with who we are.We also can’t outsource our racism to China and expect them to fix it. It’s on us.Many white people get so bogged down in this shame, embarrassment, and denial upon hearing that we haven't quite “gotten it right” about racism, that we just quit the fight and go lick our wounds in private. Hearing that feedback and what black people say behind closed doors stings, both because it often hits home more than we would like to admit, and because mechanisms designed to protect us from guilt have rendered our social muscle for discussing racism just an atrophied limb: present, but unable to do any heavy lifting.Are we doomed to that level of fragility forever? Can we find a sense of solidarity that outweighs the shame of getting it wrong? Can we accept that getting it wrong on the path to getting it right is par for the course, and not a reason to break down?Truth and ReconciliationWe would roll our eyes at someone who refuses to discuss their cancer with a doctor unless they have assurances against feeling fear or sadness, yet we hold on pretty tightly to the idea that we want reconciliation as long as we’re not made to feel the discomfort of truth.Painful things hurt. You can’t swim without being in the water. And the fact that the water is wet is not a personal attack. Remarking that much of racism has been built around the guise of protecting white women is not an act of aggression. It is a description of a very sordid and tragic truth with our name on the receipt. It may be saying that the emperor has no clothes, and if we think it shouldn’t be said, we may want to revisit the moral of that tale.When we say that we want to help, as long as none of the 40 some million black people in the US say anything about how we are hurting them, even if we are, or make videos like those of JillisBlack, or Janelle never tells us that our help isn’t helping, even if she’s right, we are not only being unrealistic, we are refusing to do any work.Participating in conversations about denial of humanity, about life and death, without a single black person ever being angry, out loud, in front of us, is not a possibility available to us in a realistic universe. We are not in charge of managing how black people feel or express that anger, frustration, loss.  We do not get to police how the very difficult truths between us are expressed, how JillisBlack should speak her truth or what Janelle should do upon witnessing us behave like elephants in a china shop. We are in charge of how we respond.We can’t fast forward through truth and expect to still get reconciliation. It may sting to hear it, but JillisBlack’s radical truth and Janelle’s declaration not to sugar coat her truth are that truth. Perhaps the first thing we need do as white people is to develop a humbler, stronger mechanism for hearing that truth. I think enough of us are more than capable of a solidarity that doesn’t end at discomfort.For additional reading, check out these articles by Dr. Robin DiAngelo.Why white people freak out when they’re called out about raceWhite Fragility: Why It’s So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism

My Truth: A follow-up to Revolutionary Honesty

If I called JillisBlack an Instagram revolutionary, she would probably roll her eyes. She’s not into labels, titles, or pigeonholes. But labels do seem to like Jill.Militant. Racist. Truth Speaker. Activist.People don’t know what to make of her.About two months ago, The Echoes Blog featured anarticle title "Revolutionary Honesty" based on myinterviewwith JillisBlack. I took a journalistic approach-- impartial, un-biased, and neutral. But I promised to write another article telling you what I really thought. First, I have to explain why it is so difficult to talk about Jill.When You Don’t Want to Be MisunderstoodMy friend circle is wide and colorful with brilliant culture. My village (my parents’ friends who love me as their own) is equally as colorful. My parents’ careers and social activities are very public. So I’m always concerned that what I say may affect them undesirably.I have much more contact with and am more visible to my mom’s friends. So, when she told me that she thought Jill was a little too militant for her, I was caught because I definitely didn’t think so. I know my mom respects that I have my own opinion, but I wrestled with the idea of publicly saying that I agreed with Jill for fear of casting an undesired light on her. But also for fear of being labeled hateful and discriminatory; just like Jill has been marked.When I talked to my father about it, his only words to me were, “Just know, once you say it, there’s no going back.” So I labored over the article. It took me longer than articles normally do. And then I realized something: This is exactly what Jill is talking about.The Racial Balancing ActWhen JillisBlack speaks of “Revolutionary Honesty,” she points a finger at black people who say things in black company that they do not say in front of white people. I am guilty of tapering my tongue to the race of my audience. There are things I have said of white people that I wouldn’t say in front of my white friends either because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, I didn’t think they were ready to hear it, or they wouldn’t understand.But it’s that tightrope that keeps us in trouble. For so long, people of color have gone along to get along. We live in what Jill describes as a dual reality. This is different for different people. For me, after working in a corporate position for six years, I was talking to a supervisor about getting braids. She looked at me with wide eyes and said, “No. In this position, that’s not wise. You’d be better just getting weave.” (You can imagine how Bill O’Reilly’s statement about Maxine Water’s hair threw salt in that wound.)Let’s be honest, if you’re white, you will never understand what it feels like be a person of color. If you’re a heterosexual, white man, the world bends to you. And if you are a white woman, historically (and sometimes currently) many racist tenets were built on and much racist propaganda defended under the guise of protecting you and your purity (see here for examples). And that goes for countries all around the world.But for so long, the topic of race has been hushed. The plight and worries of people of color have been understood in their own communities but not shared with and/or explained to white people. The every day, matter-of-fact micro-aggressions against people of color are often shrouded in feigned goodwill and innocent ignorance.At the end of the day, many black people tip toe around their true feelings in order to protect white fragility. Some people aren’t ready to hear how they are participating in the very racial unrest they claim they are seeking to stop.The Problem of Caucasian ValidationA friend mentioned to me that she was disillusioned when she went to Black Lives Matter marches. While she understood their anger, she thought it was unfair that they didn’t accept her helping hand. “I mean, wouldn’t you want white people there, too,” she asked me, “That helps it. If it’s just black people, it gets called a riot.”I remember being confused by such well-meaning arrogance. I had a couple of issues I could have spoken on:The fact that you think your white face legitimizes black angerThe fact that you know that it will be considered a riot and your solution is to show up instead of fixing the root of the problem (which is the fact that a group of white people is a protest/standoff and black people is a riot/looting)The fact that you’re willing to quit because someone didn’t welcome youThe fact that you expect fairness at a march against people who look like you denying fairnessSo here goes. We don’t need white faces to validate our anger. There are legitimate reasons for protest. There are legitimate reasons for anger. And your white face doesn’t increase or decrease that legitimacy.As Jill responded when we discussed this, if you’re coming to the march for approval, you’re there for the wrong reason. No one’s taking attendance. No gold stars are given. And the fact that you can just stop coming because you didn’t feel welcomed is a testament to your own privilege.Part of being white and wanting protest to right the wrongs of racial discrimination is recognizing something that I’m sure you’ve all said: all black people aren’t the same. It sounds condescending to remind you of something so obvious. But what that means is that all black people don’t want the same thing. And if some of us do want the same thing, we may not want it the same way.So how do you, as a white person, navigate that? Easy. Step in when you can. Step out when you’re asked. But don’t stop. Sometimes, the things you can do are things that don’t have to be in black spaces. You don’t have to show up and march with the sea of black faces. Sometimes you’re needed in the white circles pointing out the obvious idiocies you hear. Sometimes you’re needed in courtrooms to help litigate, as witnesses, or as judges. Sometimes you’re needed in dentist office conversations to stop racist jokes. Sometimes you’re needed at family gatherings to correct a family member who tries to pass off stereotypes/generalizations as fact.But giving up because someone didn’t trust you says to me that you only want to help if it’s on your terms. It says that, even in the fight against my oppression, you want to control how I liberate myself.At the end of the day, Black Lives Matter is about black lives mattering; not about how white lives feel in the space where black lives don’t matter.This is one example of many I could have chosen to talk about. I, unlike Jill, have a little more faith in white people joining the protests. Although talking with her made me realize that I need to do better at vetting of some of the faces (white and black) that I let into my circle, I’m a still less skeptical. I still look forward to my white friends going with me to talks about racial reconciliation.That’s the beauty of my black and Jill’s black. We can be two different people trying to get to one place. And I have faith that if one of us gets there first, the other will be all too happy to reach back to offer a hand.The Problem of Black MistrustWhat Jill reminded me was the importance of trust. The black community is untrusting. We are untrusting of the justice system. We are untrusting of law enforcement. We are untrusting in our work environments. And there are reasons for that. So, if you are not wanted at one march, don’t take it personally. It’s not personal. But, like many people of color have heard before, you fit the description.  The reason why writing this article was so difficult was less about what she said and more about reconciliation with my own distrust. But one thing Jill did tell me was this:"If you think that white people can stop being racist, then it would start with [you telling] the truth. You talk about your actual experience as a black person in this country. You stop sugar coating this experience for white people."So, this is the revolution in my honesty. This is me stopping the sugar coating. This is me being 100% honest because I trust you can handle it. I trust you truly want to help. I trust you are honestly seeking change. This is what trust looks like. What you do with that trust is on you. But I hope to still see you by my side in whatever capacity you are able.