The Invisible Black Woman

Note: Yep, we’re gonna talk about what happened at 6 PM yesterday in a prison in Missouri. Consider this your trigger warning to opt out.

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Y’all, today’s post is one that’s been weighing heavy on my heart. I started following the story of Marcellus Williams from the many posts and reposts I saw on LinkedIn, and what happened yesterday still feels surreal. I signed the petition. I was vocal. I did whatever I could on my end. You know how it is—you do the posts, share the links, add your name to the growing list of people demanding justice. And then what’s left? Praying and hoping. But that justice we were fighting for? It never came.

They killed an innocent man. Or as Joy Ann-Reid so aptly and profoundly put it: “he will never be older.”

I’d been watching the updates, following the news, holding onto this small, stubborn hope that somehow, someway, the right thing would happen. That they’d stop it, pull back, see the truth. But nope, that didn’t happen. They went through with it. Just like that, it was over. Another Black man’s life stolen by a system that’s been out to get us since forever.

I watched the clip from Joy Ann Reid talking about the execution. And the thing is… I didn’t feel the shock I thought I would. Instead, there was this overwhelming sense of shame at how helpless I felt. It made me wonder, have we grown numb to this?

They cut Black men down in the streets, and it’s no different when it’s done by the state. Just more paperwork, more signatures, more boxes checked off. We scream, we rally, we do everything in our power to save a life and yesterday we were told that it doesn’t matter. And I know I’m not alone in that shame, that feeling of “what else could I have done?” But truthfully, what more was there? I did everything I could. You did everything you could. We did everything we could.

I’ve seen my timeline flooded with posts about this, thankfully and rightfully so. What I feel now is a deep, gut-wrenching frustration that comes when you realize nothing’s changed. It feels like this world just keeps reminding us of how little value it places on our lives. And no matter how many petitions we sign, how many names we say aloud in protest, or how loud we shout about the injustice—sometimes it’s like screaming into a void.

As I sit here, thinking about Marcellus and everything that just happened, my mind drifted to my own world—work, life, the day-to-day nonsense that seems to pile up. You ever have one of those moments where something so big happens that it makes everything else feel small? Yeah, that’s where I was. All the BS I’ve been dealing with at work—the microaggressions, the toxicity, the dismissive attitudes, the collusion because you’re not liked, the subtle but constant reminders that I don’t quite fit in—it all felt so damn tiny. Minuscule, even.

But then as I think about it some more, I wonder if that isn’t where it all starts. You know, it’s minor at first. A microaggression here. A callous, tone-deaf remark there. Someone not taking your words seriously, brushing off your contributions in meetings, talking over you. People acting like you’re invisible even though you’re right there, doing the work, day in and day out. And before you know it, those little moments start to add up. Suddenly, we’re less than human.

So I gotta wonder: If they can treat us like we’re invisible in the workplace, what’s to stop the world from treating us like we’re disposable?

The answer, apparently, is absolutely nothing.

That’s the thing that gets me. The same thread runs through all of it. The microaggressions at work? They’re not harmless. They’re the cracks in the foundation. They’re the reminders that in someone else’s eyes, we’re “less than.” And when you can dehumanize someone on a small scale, it’s not a giant leap to dehumanize them completely. When a man like Marcellus can be executed—killed—despite all the evidence pointing to his innocence, despite the literal objection of the prosecution, you have to ask: What the hell are we even doing?

How do we get to a place where an innocent Black man can be cut down by the state? How does the system keep failing us over and over again?

So sure, it may start with the microaggressions. The racist comments. The careless remarks. The everyday interactions where people remind you, intentionally or not, that you’re somehow less human than they are. And before you know it, a life can be taken, and it’s treated as just another day in the system.

If we can’t get justice for Marcellus, who else are we going to lose to this system? Who else is going to be told their life doesn’t matter? And how long before the small, daily microaggressions we face turn into something much, much bigger?

The truth is, we’ve been fighting this fight for far too long, and nothing about it feels new. But we can’t afford to let it make us numb. We can’t afford to brush off the “small” things, because those small things are just the beginning. And when a life can be taken so easily, so carelessly, despite all the objections and the evidence—we’ve got to ask ourselves, what kind of world are we really living in? And more importantly, how do we change it?

I honestly don’t know. There are no profound words of wisdom I can offer here. No uplifting message to tie this all together. I just sit here and think about my husband, and how there’s a target painted on his back, too. It’s painted on the backs of all the Black men, Black young men, and Black boys we love. Hell, not just Black men, as we are all too painfully aware. And the truth is, it terrifies me. Because yesterday, it was Marcellus. Tomorrow, it could be any one of us.

Sadder still, you don’t even have to be locked up first. It truly breaks my heart how timeless James Baldwin’s quote (from doggone 1961, y’all) is today:

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time…

I hold on if ever so tenuously at this very moment to the hope and notion that it will get better someday. I mean, it has to…

But when?