Facebook Publication Date: 2/20/2019 8:02

Welcome to all the new followers today. This a post that I am requiring you–both new people and seasoned community members to read. It will be pinned to the top of the feed.

To all the new people following from Saira Rao’s encouragement–and for those who have been with me for awhile:

Hey everyone.

I said this in Saira Rao’s post, and am breaking this out in a separate post on my personal page and on Lace on Race, but I feel it’s important for my own agency and integrity to say this and say it strongly.

I am gratified that people want to like and follow both me and Lace on Race. Between the two, I’ve gotten over a hundred new women in the last half hour. What I am saying here goes only for me, but I hope it resonates with the women who were also tagged.

If you are just mindlessly clicking to like or follow, and considering this as little more than consumptive entertainment, Welp.

Feel free to put your trigger finger right back into its holster.

We need to be sure to not just make this yet another feel good performative exercise, so white woman can get a dopamine hit and then move on, or worse get all in their feels when anything is asked of them beyond a like or a heart.

I have been battling this toxic mindset for years, most pointedly in the year since we founded Lace on Race.

If you are coming to my page, you are accepting my leadership.

That includes my insistence on mindful and frequent engagement, tangible support of the community, deep internal work on yourself, and praxis that costs you.

If you are not up for all of those things *and i am saying this to both new followers and old alike*, unfollow now.

Doing this and expecting us to just perform for you and you have no concomitant responsibility or responsibility is just another layer of the white supremacist lady tiramisu, and I will have none of it.

IF you do want to learn and change and grow–and make this work a priority in your life, rather than a hobby, welp. I’ll see you in on my personal page and at Lace on Race.

But know what you are signing up for.

This isn’t, it simply cannot be, just for self centered aggrandizement.

It is an an insult and yet another dose of the white supremacy we fight against.

Do the work, do it in community, do it with durable intention, and support with your resources the work you say you care about so much.

Thanks for reading.

Again, this a post that I am requiring you–both new people and seasoned community members to read. It will be pinned to the top of the feed.

Please mark ‘done’ in the comments, which will affirm your reading and your agreement when you do. I don’t usually ask for this sort of thing, but I want to set intentions clearly for those coming from Saira Rao’s post, and to also make a very plain statement and reminder to those of us who have been here for awhile.

Again, my thanks.

Edited to add–strongly discouraging likes or hearts. The request was to mark ‘done’ in the comments to signify affirmation.

First lesson for new people and a reminder for the rest of us: following the leadership of black women really does involve doing what they ask; in this case the easy directive of saying ‘done’. This is a practice that requires practice. Start here and now.

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