Light Up Medium?

The light is constantly dimming. With each Black man who tries to establish that “not all men” participate in a culture that devalues and destroys Black women, with each post I see by some Black women who write articles of the “pick me Twitter” variety who feel a need to assuage Black men that not every Black woman is “against them”, with every comment I read by defensive White men who either attempt to tell me where I missed points at or who completely misread what I write, this light dims.

I am probably the wrong person to ask about a light, or to light up Medium, because even though in some ways the act of writing itself is both a therapeutic and revolutionary act personally, it also takes a lot out of me to write, understanding that there will inevitably be comments that I will have to roll my eyes at, or accounts that I will have to block because my follower count is not as important as my mental health. In addition to this, I’m a writer that can’t be paid for my work, or at least I can’t be paid what I feel is adequate compensation, so I depend mostly on a part time job and PayPal to help me survive in America. Then add being a Black writer who writes about the intersections of race and gender and politics and oppression on top of that and you can see why my light is dimming. I am tired of having to continually address the same problems over and over and over and over with seemingly little to no progress or pay to show for it. I’ve gone viral a couple of times, and nothing really comes of it either personally or professionally and quite a few times I stare at this blank screen and wonder what exactly is the point of pouring out my heart for free. I wonder what it’s going to take for my writing to “take off” and reach a point to where my words consistently challenge a large portion of Black America and even America in general to do better in enforcing the standards they like to espouse.

I love writing, I do. I just don’t love it enough to play these games of gatekeepers and audience thresholds and if you know such and such and they put in the good word for you, then we’ll consider your work. If this kind of game keeps being played, eventually my light is going to extinguish never to be rekindled again.

But for now, I suppose it’s lighting up Medium that matters. Even if they, and writing and publishing in general chews up and spits out talented writers. I’m just getting a little tired and jaded of all the run around and the toil and the compliments on my writing with little to no pay for all my alleged brilliance.

A very tired light.