I’ve been feeling this all over, lately. I’m really terrible at silence on these things, but I’m not the most eloquent speaker. It feels as if my inability to argue with an academic tone decimates the value of what I’m saying. I’ve had Black friends tell me that people would like me more if I weren’t so “racial” (noticing and pointing out the racist and racism-derived thoughts/actions of my friends) but here’s the thing:

I was blessed to grow up in a social community (my mother’s friends and their children) who valued woman-ness and Blackness to the utmost. While I never thought that Black people were *better* I did think we were uniquely valuable and I have had to fight to keep that view.

I am so very vocal, and the silence of my white friends on recent events of Black people (especially kids) being abused and killed feels like a knife in the chest. If this happened to me, would they wonder if I had been too “racial” in conversation with a “bad egg?”