The Invisible Black Woman

Quick recap: on Saturday, I shared a post that went the v-word. From that came a bunch of takeaways for me and I’d like to share seven of those with you. If you missed thing 1, you can find it here.

Full disclosure: I’m probably gonna make some of y’all uncomfortable with this one or at minimum, annoy the hell out of you. I find more often than not, the things that make me uncomfortable or irritate me are the things I need to work on, but that’s just me.

Anywho, let’s get into it.

Thing 2: Check your motives

This second lesson I’ve learned the hard way, having been on the receiving end of one too many people in my corporate life that were—to borrow from my across-the-pond peeps—of ill repute. I really believe we would save ourselves a whole lot of headache and heartache if we did this before we jumped into anything. It’s something I have gotten in the habit of asking myself before I post or write anything: “what’s my why?”

It seems weird to say this in the age of “virality” and instant fame, but the why for me won’t ever be “to go viral.” I can hear all the sales, marketing, and leads people reading this letting out a collective, disappointed sigh (or perhaps you’ve got the eye roll with the “yeah right” going on). Those of you who have rocked with me for any amount of time know full well I stand ten toes down on what I say, and I will say it with my whole chest. I have no qualms or beefs with anyone who’s writing content for the sole purpose of going viral or clicks. More power to you and happy trails. Okay, I do find it irritating, but that’s neither my business nor my problem. As far as me personally going that route? No thank you. And there’s a whole host of reasons why it’s not for me.

One, it looks hella exhausting. How many gems are in the trash pile because you’re furiously replicating content from so and so rather than just letting you and all your magnificent quirks shine through? How much time are you spending writing, rewriting, revamping, flipping around, and redacting yourself? To the point that your original voice is nowhere to be found? Then you finally post it, and it don’t hit the way you thought? So you spend the rest of the day beating yourself up over it or feeling like a failure? Oh, and before you respond to this post with a, “Oh, I don’t do this, I do this,” for the love of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, if it don’t apply, just walk on by, mmkay?

Two, what I’m sharing ain’t for me. Meaning that I truly believe that I’m living out my life’s calling through my writing. And because I do believe in a higher power, I don’t make the decisions on what I post. Some call it their gut. Others call it their intuition, third eye, sixth sense. But as a wise man once said, “a rose by any other name,” right? I trust my higher power to lead me on what to write. Now, I haven’t always gone by that in my life choices, but when it comes to writing, which is sacrosanct to me, I listen to that inner voice. It has never let me down.

Three, and maybe the most important of all, motives don’t stay hidden for long—no matter how good a job you think you’re doing at covering them. I’ve been on social media a minute and I have seen some wiiiiiiiild stuff play out. WILD. I pray to sweet Baby Jesus, the Holy Trinity, the three wise men and all the saints to never get wrapped up in any foolery. No buts. That’s the whole statement. But to my point, I see a lot of subterfuge in what people write taking shots at this person or that person without really saying it. When we do that, we’re not fooling anyone. And then it begs the question: if you’ll do it to them, how long before I end up in the crosshairs? Integrity is important. If your intent is just to go viral, without any vision or true objective, you’ll jump on every trend and do your audience a disservice because they won’t ever get to know who you are. And yes, I say this despite going by a pseudonym. You may not know who I am, but you know me. To the point of taking shots, if your intent is to use your platform to be malicious, well, mess begets mess. Periodt.

What I shared on Saturday stemmed from very painful and still-not-quite-over-it occurrences that I’ll get into at some point of what I experienced at this last corporate job. Of people being silent bystanders in rooms where my character was assassinated, then telling me about how outraged they were at what they were hearing after the fact. People in positions of power who could have intervened. But it was more important for them to stay out of the fray than to speak out about the wrong they witnessed. I shared it because my heart told me I wasn’t the only one who’d experienced this and someone out there needed to feel seen and heard. Someone who may be going through the very thing I barely survived.

So, my bottom line for lesson three is to make sure you have clearly identified your own motives, especially before you post content because the Interwebs never ever forgets. And there are way, way too many smart and intelligent people online who will suss out what you thought was a cryptically coded message in a hot, hot second.

Or, as Sir Ice Cube would say, “check ya self before you wreck ya self.”

That’s all for thing 2. Come on back for thing 3 tomorrow. G’nite!