Well I was doing the extremely messy job of cleaning out the back of my truck, which was no mean feat, more thoughts came to mind.
Here’s the deal. Said very quietly, and gently, and with all of my compassion, what people do when they say “can’t”, either in words in a private message or on a thread, or when they give a very narrow parameter of what they’re willing to do, or when they act out parameters and “can’t” with their behavior, is worth noting.
What they are doing is demanding me to take care of them.
What they are doing is displacing their discomfort on to me.
By forcing some sort of answer for me that either absolves them or pisses them off and gives them permission to leave, or by insisting that I hold a pain that they should be learning to tolerate on their own.
We’re going to be talking about this more in the relational ethics series, about being able to hold on to yourself, and to provide your own sense of emotional regulation, but I really want to highlight what happens here.
Put bluntly, it places me in the position of Mammy, and *I will not have it*.
I care deeply about each of you. I think about you all individually and collectively constantly.
I want this to be a journey that’s worth taking, that you look forward to walking.
But I cannot carry 4000 buckets, or even the 400 or so buckets of those who are regularly active in this space.
Or, and especially, those whose participation and engagement are provisional and conditional on my compliance.
That’s straight up supremacy.
One of the things that the relational ethics series will do, if you allow it to (which means you *actually have to do it*), is it will teach you how to hold your own bucket, and also how not to slosh it on people around you.
This is a big deal for another reason. I am not the only person who sees these comments.
People of color, who have been watching this space for almost 2 years are only recently poking out and making commentary and showing themselves in this space in significant numbers.
That is huge. That’s saying that this space is safeish enough for them as well as safeish for you.
I do not have the words to articulate just how brave and courageous that is, particularly when you consider all the crap that’s out there in the internets and in their real lives.
You NPHH know exactly what I mean.
That they trust this space, and me is almost beyond comprehension. That while doing this work with you is fraught and dangerous, that they are willing to risk.
I can not keep them from pain, but I will do my utmost to not allow gratuitous harm. Period.
And when they see the carve outs and the exceptions that are expected all too often, there is no way that they will not extrapolate that to their real-life lives.
Because this is exactly what happens. Saying that you’re on board and 100% and ride or die and then you get tired because white people get tired two blocks in to a 26 mile run, or that you want to do it your way, although doing race work white people’s way is why we are where we are, or when they see you leave with the slightest of pushback from me or anyone else well- you see it.
Before this space is *anything* else, it is a space for white people to learn how to be less harmful, less violent, less detrimental to black and brown people.
And everything should stem from that overarching ethos.
So all of us, all of you, should really really appreciate and take heed of the larger issues, and the meta messages that you are sending.
When you say what you are not willing to do, how heavy the load is before you have taken so much as a single step, much less a mile.
With all love, what I’m asking of you is not onerous oh, and remember, you opted in.
It is worth really meditating on how you are in the space, because as I have said many times who you are in this space is who you are and there is no way that you can do what you say you want to do outside these virtual walls if you are not doing it here.
This is a lab, a rehearsal space, a place for you to get it wrong so that you will get it more right when you are actually charged to be the person you say you want to be outside of your screen.
We are a community that is set up very deliberately to learn how to lean on each other, how to take care of each other, and that’s not just hearts and flowers, that sometimes tough messages as well.
As we walk together, you will do better.
But only if you continue to walk, and not do what so many do, which is look for the rest stop when the car is barely out of the driveway.
I will serve you with my utmost, but I cannot, will not, carry you.
This work, this call is yours.
I am now going to find something to eat and watch how many people we lose because of this post.