GOTTA be a parody! Blue check's thread on the 'socialization of white people' belongs in the Hot Mess Hall of Fame

That feel when you read a thread on Twitter and you’re positive the account responsible for it HAS to be a parody … and they’re not. It’s sort of like biting into a cookie and thinking it’s chocolate chip and it’s actually oatmeal raisin.

Just not right.

This thread from Kelly Wickham Hurst, the Executive Director of Being Black at School, on the socialization of white people is one of those threads.

“For a lot of white people, the mere suggestion that being white has meaning will cause great umbrage. And I think of it as a kind of weaponized defensiveness.”

https://t.co/TPOBWU9gFa

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

From a site called tolerance.org.

Alrighty then.

“Weaponized tears. Weaponized hurt feelings. And in that way, I think white fragility actually functions as a kind of white racial bullying.”

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

Huh?

You know what? We don’t wanna know.

That part ☝? reminds me of a quote from Mia McKenzie on the socialization of white people. She says that white men are socialized to think everyone cares what they have to say & white women are socialized to think everyone cares how they FEEL.

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

You know that face you make when you’re standing in line at the grocery store and the person at the front of the line starts writing a check? Yup, just made that face.

”POC working and living in primarily white environments take home way more daily indignities and slights and microaggressions than they bother talking to us about because their experience consistently is that it’s not going to go well.”

She’s right. We DON’T tell everything. pic.twitter.com/ExU8x2og0l

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

In every room I’m in we create these guidelines.

And every single time a white person will try to add “assume good intentions” to that list.

We don’t let them. We CANNOT assume every white person has done the identity work for that to make it in the guidelines. pic.twitter.com/vweJqmJBwh

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

Identity work.

And often? They tell on themselves sometime later. If white tears show up, I hand it off to my white co-facilitator. That’s their work.

Not mine.

I can listen to them while crying but I won’t offer the comfort that demands. It’s my self-care.

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

This sounds a little bigoted to this editor. Ok, a lot bigoted but yeah.

Another thing I won’t allow in my space: to be weaponized against my Black brothers & sisters.

Trust me: people TRY to drive that wedge between us. “But Don’t Black women have it worse?” or some such nonsense.

I’m not about to play Oppression Olympics. (w/ any POC group, rly) pic.twitter.com/puXSqGzv5Y

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

Just made the grocery store face again.

This part about emotional stamina brings me back to grit. Especially in schools where Ts assume Ss need more of it.

Nah, fam.

Do your own work first. pic.twitter.com/qimu8mwhik

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

I would say more here on the ways we all get socialized for this maintenance but I won’t.

You’ll have to hire me for that.

This here is the only teaching I’ll do for free.

But if you’re serious about dismantling & ready to work? pic.twitter.com/50WfIz7sdB

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

Oooh, so this thread was some sort of job interview or something.

Yeah … pass.

Why won’t I do more for free? Because I’ve seen some of y’all outright steal my work and monetize it.

I watch #edutwitter do this. Just out here snatching folx work. pic.twitter.com/tCD4dqkau0

— Kelly Wickham Hurst (@mochamomma) May 27, 2019

Right.