When?

When do we get to stop

making and remaking ourselves

into the shell that is acceptable by the majority culture

when do we stop the unpaid compensation of the mental toil that it takes to figure out which approach to take with which person on any given day in the workplace

when do we get to be our authentic selves?

When do we get to express ourselves without being reserved being their kind of kind?

Being respectable by others disrespectable standards.

When will this work this be recognized as mental labour that no one else is expanding their mental capacity to learn about me

me as a person who has experienced several traumas in the United States.

Me who has experienced several traumas in the US education system,

Me who is then experienced several traumas in each workplace day and day out moment after moment, day by day,

watching people who look like me, who sound like me who have the same lived experiences me find themselves unaliving themselves

death by murdered at the hands of the white majority
Like a dripping faucet each and every moment there is another sista, another brotha who takes their last breath

when do the people who occupy the majority culture in these white spaces of power

When do they use their mental capacity to learn,

Rather than take and misappropriate

When do they and those of them who look like me and sound like but behave like them

When do they wake up to speak up and stop the cycle.

When does this take place? Tell me when.

Written by Dr. Carrie Young-McWilliams