I now know “alternative music” is a genre created to place music White people have appropriated from others. These tactics continue and White people continue to genre hop without hesitation and with little resistance, see Post Malone.

It’s literally titled How to deal with remote work microaggressions but goes on and on about “allyship”. It basically just lists all the microaggressions they can think of for various communities and drops BIPOC as many times as possible. Who are y’all talking to? Lola Bakare (She/Her) shared similar feelings after receiving an email entitled “Want to Be an Ally to Black Women? from Lean In. Lola shared that “another great way to be an ally is to acknowledge your Black subscribers exist.” Both examples credit the writing to the brand and not a specific writer or group of writers. If your target audience is cis White people, you should say that.

Often people are not able to get past question one. I also make sure to let them know that I have no interest in being hospitalized. A therapist dedicated to providing adequate care and ensuring those in search of care are able to receive the care they need would be able to provide honest answers. Not all therapists are good therapists. It’s better to know that before building a harmful relationship with a bad one.

Exploiting, misdirecting, and lying in order to present your business as Black owned is wrong. Black people and other people who are not White are not props. As a brand, if you are using certain faces to promote your brand while White faces are actually at the helm, stop. I won’t even waste my time on the individuals who do this.

When Janelle shared that they were nonbinary, I remember one post saying that “it’s never okay to assume someone’s identity before they share it but Janelle has always been nonbinary to me.” This validated so much for me. Janelle also shared this information for the first time with Black women on a Black show, this was a great example of Blackness of Queerness coexisting without one being prioritized over the other.

Spanking, corporal punishment or physical punishment is a form of abuse. It is a method that for centuries was used to proclaim power over others. The fear of being physically abused is the only tool being wielded. Fear and abuse as tools for power, control or leadership are ultimately ineffective and dishonest. Their use alongside words like love, trust, and respect are contradictory. Several studies have shown that these acts cause a long lasting effect of those being abused.

With psychology and mental health being such White dominated fields, it’s easy to imagine why these behaviors were not annotated as stimming but rather purposeful disruptions. This disconnect is harmful and has led to so much more harm. Black people be stimming. This needs to be acknowledged so we can receive correct diagnosis and get the care that we need.

A trans flag and a nonbinary flag meet at the middle. In front of them are people sitting at a table asking questions.

Separating nonbinary people from transness feels like confirmation of cis people’s beliefs that even in transness the gender binary must still be upheld. I wrote on my own understanding of this in Trans Enough. I understand to be trans is to not align with the gender assigned to you at birth, which I do not therefore I am trans. When I see “Nonbinary AND Transgender” it feels like saying “well there’s these people and they're not trans but they’re not cis either”.

I do know that a lot of people do this to ensure nonbinary people know they are being included but in a roundabout way it feels the opposite.

Last year I was a guest on a podcast focused on racial ambiguity, Our True Colors. I shared that “ambiguity only exists when specificity isn’t present and assumptions are prioritized in exchanges.”

In real life people are proud of where they’re from and who they are. In real life people poke ambiguity with a “stick” often. People, White people, are always asking “where are you really from?”

This leads to one of the top questions around Bonnie being about her ethnicity.

Many creators in my circle have had the same experiences. I think the most telling part for me, is their Top Voices choices along with the choices they choose to amplify on their own page, it’s always the same types of professionals. LinkedIn has also began prioritizing TikTok stars instead of those who create exclusively on their platform.

The artist, Nadia Snopek, is White and likely did not consult a single Black person before publishing. In the originally mentioned conversation, Ku’ulani Keohokalole (She/Her/‘Oia), shared something I’ll never forget. She shared that “When people say they ‘don’t care if people are blue, purple, or green’, I tell them there are no blue, purple, or green people. People don’t come in those colors, so what are you really saying?”

Rahimeh Ramenzany (She/Her) was a guest on my podcast, Absolutely Not!, almost 2 years ago. She was an absolute delight and she is the reason I have my name pronunciation visible in a lot of places.

In Jazmine Sullivan’s award winning album she provides ballad after ballad entrenched with vulnerability, sexual experiences and a deep look into the ideology we are taught about our bodies and what we are allowed to do with them.