Facebook Publication Date: 43596.545138889
Lace is tired.
One of the things that I have been working steadily on here in this space is introducing the unique and novel concept of respecting people of color in general and black people, black women, in particular.
Not just lip service. Actual respect. Which is indeed in short supply out in the world.
And in this space as well.
There are not a lot of ways I can make a disparate group of thousands of people think about, internalize, and live out a newfound feeling and practice of respect.
I make some assumptions about you all.
I assume that you care somewhere on the Spectrum about racial Justice.
I also assume that you’re willing to do reasonable things, and take reasonable steps to push back your resistances and your ambivalences toward doing real work and making real effort towards the goal of racial Justice.
There are 2 Reasons among many that I insist upon no reacts or emojis.
The first one is that retards and inhibits engagement. It retard and inhibits internalization and retention of the material presented to you.
It makes this nothing more than a form of entertainment, and it is at bottom a self-aggrandising, and ultimately selfish, act.
That’s one reason.
The other, more important reason is to learn how to take direction from women of color. That’s a big deal.
Because most if you don’t have to do that in your everyday lives. And we can see hoe this disregard play out in a number of ways on this Page.
So when I’m looking at outward behavioral change that will drive internal conviction I employ ‘No Reacts’, because it is a simple direction that you either will or will not follow.
Every time you follow it, you are reinforcing your commitment to listening to respecting and heeding people of color.
Every time you choose not to you were doing the exact opposite.
You are reinforcing the disregard that you have for us at your core.
Before you think for even one moment that I am only speaking to white people, think again.
People of color are not used to following black women either.
I am asking you, in this directive for comments only a no reactions to really live with the dissonance.
This new and scary idea that sometimes you don’t know best. This idea that you can’t pick and choose how you do your Justice work.
The idea that you can shrug it on and off like a coat.
It is been said more than once that the space is not like other spaces.
And the responses to that, more accurately said *the resistance* to that, has been predictable.
Well, I’m used to doing it another spaces you might say. Well, I didn’t check to see who posted. I can’t comment on everything oh, you might say. I’m doing you a favor by using reacts because it increases your post views, you say.
Every one of those things is resistance.
If this is not something you are willing to do, that is saying that you do not want to be a fully functioning and engaged part of this community.
That is what I see every time I see a react.
That someone is saying that they want to be adjacent to the work but they do not want to actually do the work.
And that might be okay and other spaces, but very quietly said, it is not okay here.
This is important because we’ve gained a lot of new members in the past few months, 35 alone from nonprofit happy hour yesterday.
Those of you who have been here a while should be modeling the ethos and the shared responsibilities of this community, not subverting and sabotaging them, and by doing so, allowing others, encouraging others, to do the same.
This is an important part of your Praxis.
And if you don’t get it right in this rehearsal space, you are not getting it right in your outside lives.
You are disregarding women of color’s directives, words, leadership.
And that has no place in a space like this one.
Again, in a virtual online space, there are limited ways that I have to invite you in to a different kind of way of doing things.
If you continue to resist and thwart those efforts you are not only hurting yourself, you’re not even not only hurting me, but you are hurting your fellow community members.
So then all of you. *Do the relational ethics work.* Most of you have not–and that includes almost all of you who continue to choose to react.
There are thousands of other spaces you can peruse if you don’t choose to be here and relate to this space as a fully committed and engaged community member.
But if you choose to be here, you are also choosing my leadership and my methods.
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