Facebook Publication Date: 2/17/2018 8:02

Crossposting here. I mean every word.

Wow. Walls are being broken and rebuilt like nobody’s business. Time to shift, y’all.

Hey to everybody who have liked and hearted and shared my words and work, and all the other pieces that have run again, both on my personal page and on the new Page so they could import to Lace on Race!

I’m speaking to those 1200 of you who have chosen, on the strength of my work, to follow either my personal page, or Lace on Race, or who sent me a friend request.

Yes, including the 300+ folks from the last week alone, but nobody gets a pass. This is for everyone.

You like the work. That’s plain. I’m glad.

Well, then.

Support the work. Likes and hearts and shares are *your* emotional reinforcement. They’re not for me, and they do nothing to further the work.

By now, if you have read anything by me, you know there is a strong sociopolitical component to ingesting the words of black women for free. Not a good look for those of you would consider themselves on the right side of the racial justice debate.

This 1200 strong, 95% white cohort who would watch but not contribute to the community is antithetical to the work. It contributes to and is a fetid legacy and relic from the toxic dynamic and power imbalance which has been a hallmark, a malevolent talisman, of how the white gaze has consumed black bodies, minds, and spirits since the first slavers snatched the first of my ancestors off of African shores and forced them to endure the Middle Passage.

There will be no virtual slavery here. There will be no slumming down to a gin joint in the colored section circa 1933, and going back to your lives after you watch [read] the show, privilege absolutely intact.

Not in Black History Month. Not in the new era of Wakanda. Not ever.

Straight up.

For reasons I have expounded upon, it is incongruous, disingenuous, and yes, no small amount of racist to consume and then sometimes repackage and regurgitate my words sans attribution (yes, I’ve seen it. Yes, it galls.). It happens with other women of color as well. It burns.

Absolute candor. I don’t get a neurochemical bump at the sight of growing numbers. Especially when it seems all these people want to do is to hold their opera glasses with gloved hands from the gallery.

Neither my personal space nor Lace on Race are for anybody’s superficial aggrandizement, where they can check off the ‘ally’ box, read for two minutes, grimace a bit if warranted, press ‘heart’ for your chemical rush, and then go on with no change till you need another ‘ally’ fix.

Here is the heart of it–*the money ask is a lesson in itself*.

For me, yes–knowing and insisting that others recognize and acknowledge the value and validity of myself and of my words has been transforming.

But for you too. You, who have been socialized to devalue and dehumanize black women are doing a revolutionary act *within yourself* when you contribute to being in a community headed by a black woman, in this case, myself.

I can’t believe that nobody who messaged me figured that out.

Who you are and what you do when you press the button or link–or sail by it to ‘heart’, or just plain ignore, or get not so low key annoyed by it (yes, I read your messages) is a tell. And a big one.

I have way more to say on this. But for before breakfast and before I tend to my training cohort in Real Talk, I will say one more thing, this one aimed at those who want to see ‘if [they’re] going to get their money’s worth’.

Welp. You are already here. So surely, you already saw something of value. This as well, really sit with just how much more you feel entitled to, couple that with systemic devaluation, and ask if you might need to recalibrate your perceived ROI.

Lace on Race, before it became a formal space, was already extant. I’ve been posting under Lace on Race for a while now. So there is *already* a body of work to peruse.

More later. But my sometimes too-gentle prose can give white people permission to gloss over, even as they demand still more and more. I checked. For a 28 day old page, there is a lot there–because of my own internalized racism and self devaluation. Wanted to be sure to sing for my supper, as it were.

You can see just how that is exactly as dysfunctional and insulting as it reads.

I said last week that i was prepared to lose 95% of you. No longer true.

I’m prepared to lose 99%.

So do what you must. Unfollow. Rescind that friend request. Reholster your ‘heart’ finger.

Or truly join me.

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