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Danielle is workshopping a piece to be published later, but I think this important to reflect and comment upon right now.

I may flesh this out into a separate piece of my own, but for now, holding the Crissy and Alison mishegoss fresh in our minds, we can confront this as well.

***As always, our new customs still apply. No fewer than 100 responses, everyone has to respond to at least two other comments by community members. Absolutely no reacts/emojis.***

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It is crucial for white women to remember that when you are encountering a woman of color that the *onus is on you* to ensure that you are not a pain point for her.

And that means doing the work of relational ethics before the encounter– even if it’s only a milliseconds worth of remembering your very real potential for harm and violence and gathering up your tools, along with your capacity, agency, and volition to be fully present and relentlessly resilient and reliable– *before* the encounter begins.

Because if things go fast and furious and go sideways, like it did with my (perhaps still) friend Chris, you will not be able to muster up those tools in the thick of it.

And you’re doing all of this while at the same time hopefully not making it an excruciating exercise in self-centeredness or self flagellation that forces the Black or other woman of color to take care of you.

You are walking a fine line. It can be, yes, exhausting, particularly in these early stages while you are learning tools and shoring up your relational muscles.

But.

I can guarantee you that it is absolutely more exhausting, not to mention dangerous, than for the woman of color is also dealing with as she encounters *you*.

Because believe me– she’s made calibrations of her own before she’s opened her mouth to you. The risk we take to enter into relationship with white women, even with small encounters, like the grocery store, or by the copier, is real. We know that the possibilities for things going south are better than even, even when we know you, even when we are in a good relationship with you, there is still volatility, and when things blow up , it’s we who suffer the burns.

Again, so no one can claim they didn’t see it: ***As always, our new customs still apply. No fewer than 100 responses, everyone has to respond to at least two other comments by community members. Absolutely no reacts/emojis.***

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