Sage

💛

Thank you for writing and sharing your thoughts. 💜
If a further comment is okay/wanted -- and if not I will happily delete this part of my comment -- the inflexibility of society to allow Black men and boys to be soft (and by extension, vulnerable, or even "weak") is a thought that sticks with me. I remember seeing a photography project a few years ago where the subject was Black men in soft, sometimes even delicate posing, and warm lights, and a general sense of tenderness and I was struck with how I had never, never seen anything like it before with Black men when I had probably seen it a hundred million times with white men.

Learning how to offer community from my positions of privilege is something I've been trying to figure out for a while now. I don't fucking blame you for not feeling safe around white liberals! But at the same time, exclusion doesn't seem like the right path either. And for the record, I'm not expecting you to have solutions for my white fragility. But reading what you share definitely underlines the importance of finding ways to build communities that serve both everyone's needs. When I have some better ideas, let's compare notes?

I really liked this piece. It spoke to a lot of what I dealt with growing up. I often hid things about myself based on who I was with. It took until college for me to start being comfortable with being Black and enjoying all of the things I did.