Why Black folks?

It’s a question I’ve gotten often since kicking around this idea of a Center. Actually, the question I get is “Why just Black folks, though?” My response is usually, “Why not just Black folks?” My question is sometimes met with silence, sometimes met with a grimace, but often with a sigh and a shrug. It all culminates back to the same unspoken perception that others have about us and we have about ourselves: Healing Black folks is tiring work and working specifically for Black folks is not financially sustainable.

I get it. Really, I do. I grew up in a little country town in Holmes County, MS and we still don’t have stoplights. Education, athletics, or the military were the only legal outs for little black kids seeking to stretch their wings beyond the county or state line. My mama had already carved out a path for me to follow that involved college and career to offset the label of “Welfare Baby” stamped on my ass by the government. She wanted more for all of her girls and she was willing to do almost anything to do it. So I went to college, got the degrees, landed a career, and have been enjoying a life of comfort my mom had never experienced. I looked good on paper. It was probably year three into my first professional job when I realized I was playing the role of the Safe Negro in predominately-white spaces, and about a year later when I was able to categorize it as a side effect of the very same plan designed to save and improve my life. I knew then that I would never truly be free to exist outside my comfortable trappings and had determined to dedicate my life to being an educator to those who looked like me. I wanted to make sure that other Black kids who dreamed of better had an opportunity to read the fine print before signing on.

I also dedicated my life to being a resister, one who seeks to disrupt this myth of the Safe Negro and unpack the ways in which it provokes Black folks to further separate ourselves from each other in hopes of being “chosen.” I dedicated my life to unpacking how this choosing allows us to validate and turn a blind eye to the violence that occurs to those who may look like us, but lack the attraction to Respectability Politics. I dedicated myself to unraveling us from the snares of inequity and oppression laid by White Supremacy.

I dedicated myself to Black people.

The other things will work itself out, but this is where I need to be.

-Wanda