Facebook Publication Date: 3/29/2022 23:03

This is something I’m still learning.

The onslaught that I and the community of Lace on Race endured these past months left me more tentative than I thought I would ever be.

There were moments of Bravery, and for that I am grateful and, yes proud of myself, but being ‘the bigger person’ it’s not Hesed oh, not in the way the world thinks of it.

I was deeply harmed by a man in 2016; he’s one of the reasons I started Lace on Race. His partner suggested that I be ‘the bigger person’. I tried, and was harmed still further.

It’s a form of self-flagellation, this: allowing people to do violence upon you and then feeling inhibited because of what the perpetrator and their supporters might think of you.

Again, not Hesed.

Standing up for yourself in the service of standing up for others as well, *is*.

It is neither hubris nor is it narcissism to insist that I be seen and cherished and heard.

Every time I stand up it gives permission for another woman of color to stand up as well.

That is why I cannot ever stop. And I will not.

As I shake off the shackles of reticence and self-flagellation in the wake of my mother’s death, may I remember this and live it out daily.

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