Calling it out

I write this from a space of feeling angry, vulnerable and violated.

So I've been traveling this weekend. And it's been both refreshing and soul crushing. How is that possible? Well I'm a complicated individual.

I'm going to have to save the refreshing part because I couldn't do it justice in this mood. 

Anyway here is what I have to say. I'm tired of trying to pretend that I think my experience in grad school as some kind of benign incompetance of bureacracy. I don't think that. I think that I am living in a system that is complicit at it's best and participatory at it's worse with a white-supremecist/anti-black system that conditions of my grad education. I'm tired of being told that we, students of color, are all experiencing problems with our programs when the reality is that I live in a department that has a laissez-faire policy of discussing Blackness from faculty to grad students. It no longer feels like enough to have people say that they see my struggle and know that the effort that they put towards addressing them and the effort that I put into supporting them is dispproportionate. As if we aren't going to an institution (the UC system) has historically (and I believe still does) targeted low incomeBlack students for removal (via admissions and retention policies.) I'm not saying that it's a utopia for other racial/ethnic groups but lets not pretend they are the same experience.

Let me be honest and say that I think that many people who say that they espouse antiracist ideals have no interest or commitment to anti-Black-anti-racism. And I'm exhausted by participating in supposed anti-racist projects that could give a shit about my people's struggle. Go ahead call me selfish.

I'm tired of living in an environment that tries to suggest that the racism of my peers is merely forgivable ignorance. You're not cute to me with you implicit racist assumptions masquerading as a lack of reading or doing your homework. I shouldn't be penalized or made to feel vulnerable for calling bullshit; and I also shouldn't be used as a scape goat so that others feel like they don't have to call bullshit. I'm on the frontlines and my so called allies are in tents back on base.

Fuck the benefit of the doubt. I don't believe in allies unless they've proven themselves. And I still say fuck your cookies, do it because you believe it's right not because you're afraid I'll be mad at you or want me to like you more.

I'm overly exhausted by bullshit this weekend. I've really worked hard to put this part of my personality to the side because I spend so much energy being mad at it, it feels like there is none left for my self care. But I feel like I'm too vulnerable now, like I'm being taken advantage of because I try to let go of the daggers in the back. 

How do I live in a world where Black and woman and angry aren't so interconnected without opening myself up to being pwned by the world? 

Shit I'm taking a nap.

Sent from my Palm Pixi on AT&T