Black Participation Points

Under the Thumb of ‘Appreciation’ but Not ‘Gain’

We need to have a talk about how many of our white colleagues view handing us trophies, awards, severely low pay (+ visibility I guess), and cookies as the same as community growth, opportunities, and well-being. Let me explain.

Over the last year, the hellscape that is the decade of 2020 has really highlighted to me what many think allyship is. Originally I was terrified and flattered to be considered for so many things. Invites to summits, inclusion in conferences, suggestions for panels-it all felt new, and like I was finally making it somewhere. I watched as my spaces grew and flourished, as more people passed my message(s) about ‘we need to care about black lives, lgbtq+ needs, trans lives, what have you’. I got countless praise and messages.

“You always say what needs to be said.”
“I appreciate the work you do.”
“I’m so happy I met you and you deserve everything you get.”

I started to notice that as more time passed that’s….all we could see. Praise. Head pats. High fives and ‘good jobs.’ But when it comes time to do the next step: pay us, don’t ask us for labour for free, hire us to work at the company, we fall back into the same trap-the same scenario where all the reasons they love us…are the same reasons we aren’t hired, aren’t engaged directly, aren’t afforded that chance/opportunity.

All the work that we do, its agreed is needed, ‘but perhaps not in my (white people’s) vicinity’. So to make up for it?

We get more awards.
We get denied that job, ‘but here’s a pity sponsor we got you! Sorry!’
We get more cookies.
“We can’t hire you right now, but here’s some goods to tide you over. Good luck next time!”
“Oh, we can hire you, but it has to be a lower than normal rate-but it’ll help you so much!”
“No really that stuff is SUPER important, and I support you-I just don’t know how Bob, or residential racist that we’re afraid to fire, would feel on it….so we can’t bring you on right now.”
Then when we say ‘so what’s good on a permanent gig, since you seem to have a need for my services and then some’-hand wringing. Discomfort. Evasiveness. Excuses.

We are valued until we actually hold the same people accountable like they ask us to do.
“I hear you in that this person is a problem….but the reality is, you’re easier to fire, and they complained about you, so my hands are tied.”

I look at all the times I’m praised, keekee’d, and loved in DMs and see how they aren’t proportionate to the love I receive to actually feel like I’m valued on a real scale. A recent flub made me realize this has been the norm for me since I was 22-when I literally did get termed from a job because the owner found it easier to fire me for wanting too much to change and be addressed than to term the man who was making customers uncomfortable, that ALL staff were complaining about, that had countless call ins about racism towards customers (the person was POC and would constantly hit on femme presenting customers-if they had boyfriends or politely declined, he would table flip and say they were lying and that they’re actually just racists and bigots). All it took was the residential stoner to complain about me one time.

My boss at the time-a queer white woman (shocking I know)-was this exact archetype: “I love you, I adore you, I appreciate you, you’re my best worker, thank you for handling X Y Z while I’m gone”. When the day came that the owner said he was firing me, I got the tip from a different coworker who was eavesdropping and texting me saying ‘you’re going to want to get here, now’, and when I showed up my boss, without hesitation, looked at me, and without me having said a word to her said:

“I’m super sorry, but he said he got a complaint and there’s nothing I can do.”
All that love and compassion for all the work I had done for her inside and outside the job vanished in an instant. She had no interest in fighting for me to keep my job. She also accidentally made it clear that she had a chance to stop it, and just opted not to. I was effectively used for my labour.

I am no longer friends with this person, both after essentially leaving me on the path to homelessness (I got lucky because I started grad school with a stipend 2 months later) and watching her have a meltdown when cis women were held accountable for leaving trans women in the dust, as they always do, and watched a two hour exchange that summed up to ‘not all cis women are bad and we’re trying really hard!’

I thought about how hard ‘she tried’ to ensure a black woman wasn’t unfairly terminated. I realized what many white people consider ‘trying hard’ in justice isn’t actually trying at all-it’s just keeping afloat to ensure no one views them as racist, or biased. It’s smiling and clapping in our face and saying ‘you’re so great!’ and that’s……about it.

I saw said former boss at C2E2 in March 2020.
I have no interest in trying to coddle her feelings and ‘understand’ from her perspective why she left me to rot then blacklisted me for expecting her to do better as a queer woman-only to call me up in tears about how hard her life is (she would brag to me constantly about how she’s marrying the love of her life along with his penis size, how much she hated vocal lesbians, and could afford to own 8 cats at a time at any given time plus owned a house) because ‘trans folx are really hard on us.’
I walked past her and acted as though I didn’t see her.

There’s not really a ‘good way’ to feel when you get told time and again that the reason you can never seem to make headway on upgrading your life is……the same reason people ‘love, adore, and appreciate you’.

Especially when you consider our white cohorts, conversely, can maintain the sponsors, their jobs, their gigs, while loudly supporting straight up bigotry. We can’t point this out however: “but that’s different and a bit more extreme.”

There’s not a ‘good way’ to feel when you’re told that the work you do is essential, necessary, imperative to the space, only to then be told ‘but that ONE TIME you said something? that was an oof, so I can’t push you through’-only to see a kid who shot and killed people in broad daylight post a $2mil bail and then have people falling all over themselves to “save” him. There’s no good way to feel when white allies insist on DEI pipelines and loops but never want to unpack why those seminars and talks aren’t making actualized progress.

Businesses are vying to work with literal terrorists and don’t feel bad about it. Or when called on it, shrug and go ‘well technically we don’t sponsor the person, but we can’t make the person we DO sponsor not support him.’ Looking at you coffee company that I Won’t Name….

But y’all are still Concerned™ on if the black people are gonna get mad and pop off one day. “Terrified™” that after we clock on, we might call out someone a bit too concisely. Even though that’s ‘what you love about us.’

I sit and watch how fast white people become uncomfortable when the same traits and ideas they adore me for are the same reasons I’m scolded behind closed doors. I watch as I’m told ‘you are too loud in criticizing this specific person’ then sit uncomfortably in chats as the same person who had a black woman receiving death threats for 48 hours is rallied behind for ‘being so great, wish he could be president.’ People support someone who made it clear it is 100% OK to inflict monstrous harm on people ‘so long as you didn’t know better’ and we’re supposed to be ‘more understanding’ of it, all while being told to jump into a wood chipper and take our watermelons with us.

The world works tirelessly to let black women know we are valued the same way that white people value trophies: we’re nice to look at, will absolutely be shown off, but beyond that there is no value. There may have been some hard work to get there, possibly, but none of that matters now-we have the trophy. We (white people) did it. We acknowledge your hard work and efforts, so that should be sufficient to keep you off our case about not hiring you for being too black/pointed, to keep you from dragging us for skipping over you due to not being popular enough, to keep us out of your conversations about white fragility, because I helped you at least once. I mean, we’re talking to you still, right? That’s the proof we care! We can keep trying! I can mentor you into the exact black person I wa — we ne — I can help you past those barriers! (half of this paragraph is loudly sarcastic-but the last phrase was a popular response in all of 2020)

And when we have the ‘gall’ to say ‘we are not your trophies or free labourers’, we like clockwork, are met with the pouts and sad faces. We’re met with donations Just Because, but never once a meaningful “I’m really sorry; where did I drop the ball?” We are told ‘well if it’s like that, we can talk whenever’ and the ball gets thrown back in our (black women’s) court.

We’re never heard at any point in the conversation.
But damn if we aren’t applauded like we’re putting on a performance and scolded when we don’t follow the script.
Even when people agree the script is shit.