For her son’s funeral in Chicago, the mother of Emmett Till, Mamie Till, insisted that the casket containing his body be left open, because, in her words, “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” The photo of Till’s severely beaten and bloated body […]
Indeed, we were all facing the same virus, but we are not all having the same pandemic experience. It has become glaringly apparent that while we are all in the same storm, we are not all in the same boat. If America was out to sea and a storm set upon the ocean, many White people are on a cruise ship, and Black people are in dinghies.
In thinking about racism, I was reminded of the Five Stages of Grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance) developed by David Kessler and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. I realized that facing racism has a similar process. There are stages of facing the reality of racism.
I remember when I was a kid my brother and sister and I would crack jokes on one another. Some jokes were funny; however, some jokes were mean and cut to the core. But no matter what, I knew at the end of the day, they were my […]
“THAT’S RACIST!!!” “You are talking about racism, and THAT’S RACIST!” “You called me out on my racist behavior, and THAT’S RACIST!!” If I had a dollar for every time someone called me racist on social media, I could finally pay off all my loans and go live on […]
In another episode of Black People Been Knew, it seemed over the weekend America woke up and realized that indeed America is still racist. When I logged onto Twitter, many people in my feed were posting about racism like a child that recognizes Mommy and Daddy are really […]
As someone that spends their life trying to improve the landscape of our humanity, I am always delighted when someone approaches me and tells me that they are an ally. If we desire for this world to be a better place, we will get there much faster if […]
Social media is still ablaze about Roseanne Barr, being who she has always been- racist and condescending, comparing former Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarett to an ape. The backlash for Roseanne’s comments was swift, and within a matter of hours, ABC canceled Roseanne’s show, she […]
Today I awoke to the news that once again, another town has been impacted by a mass shooting. It seems we can hardly process one mass shooting before dealing with the devastating effects of another one. In Nashville, Tennessee, 29-year-old White male, Travis Reinking, drove to a busy […]
Last week this issue came up on my Facebook feed, and I was going to address it, but life happens, and the point got away from me. However, scrolling through my Twitter feed, I see the, “I am not a racist because…” issue has reared its head again. […]
