Facebook Publication Date: 3/17/2018 16:03

On the now ubiquitous term ’emotional labor’:

While I see the intent behind the term ’emotional labor’ as it pertains to the contributions of persons of color in online and offline spaces, I am going to share why I am fading these terms of jargon and lingo that the racial justice community uses these days out of my personal and professional vocabulary.

Candidly, they’ve been co-opted by wipipo. And used, however unintentionally, to bolster white supremacy.

In the case of ’emotional labor’–I am in no way activated or triggered by most exchanges regarding race. My heart rate is rarely elevated; my breathing is not shallow.

I have, however, invested my 35 years of academic, professional, and practical experience into my responses. I do not give emotional labor. I give expertise, knowledge, analysis–in short, at minimum, I give *intellectual labor*.

Which is what most people of color give in these discussions. But it is easier to credit our midbrains (emotions) than it is to credit our forebrains (cognitive capacity). that’s a function of the racialized soup we live in; that black people are encouraged to do brute labor and emote for white people’s benefit and profit, but the higher order functions are left for white people themselves.

This, what I do here, is real work. Work that should be respected. But it is easier to deny our intellect and our leadership by minimizing just what kind of work we do.

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