The Invisible Black Woman

I wasn’t going to say anything. Again.

I’ve been in hiding. Functional-hiding. Smiling-hiding. “Let me just get through this year” hiding. But sometimes silence isn’t protection. It’s complicity. And today I realized that hiding is no longer an option.

This post is inspired by a sister I spoke to. I won’t share her name. I won’t share her story. But I will share what she re-sparked in me: a fire. A grief. A clarity. Because what she’s going through is real. It’s heavy. And it’s too familiar for too many of us.

While she’s fighting for basic dignity, I’ve been watching—not at all in disbelief, mind you—as my LinkedIn feed drops one grotesque update after another about a woman who called a Black child the N-word. Not a grown man. Not a stranger in traffic. A five-year-old. And instead of being met with outrage, she was met with opportunity.

She launched a GoFundMe. And then she raised the goal. First $100K. Then $250K. Now? A million.

I don’t know how close she is to reaching it. I won’t look. I refuse to look. Because I already know the truth: you can monetize racism in this country.

You can package hate, throw a pity party, and profit.

This ain’t new. But the consistency of it still stings like the first slap.

And meanwhile? We’re here.

Patching up each other’s wounds.

Passing around the same $20 to make sure someone eats today.

Scraping up cash for funerals.

Building and rebuilding GoFundMes for survival while they build theirs off of sin.

It’s not just the hypocrisy.

It’s not just the injustice.

It’s the efficiency with which they are allowed to do harm and be rewarded for it.

And it breaks me that we—Black folks, my people—we are still fighting each other when the war is right in front of us.

We have so much brilliance. So much wealth. So much power. But we are splintered. Siloed. Scarred.

We could be building empires, and instead we’re being forced to build exits, evacuations, and escape plans.

We are tired, and traumatized, and trying all at the same time.

Yes, there is progress. Yes, there are pockets of excellence, collective joy, shared wins. I see them. I celebrate them. But while we crawl toward the table, others have already been fed, cleaned the dishes, and gotten their dessert to go.

The gap isn’t closing. Not fast enough. And too many of us are dying in the waiting room.

So I’m not here to offer solutions today. I’m not wrapping this one in a neat little bow.

I’m here to rage. To weep. To bear witness.

And to write, because that’s how I bleed without unraveling.

To the sister who inspired this post, you are not forgotten.

To the ones who are tired of being strong, you are not alone.

To the ones who know too well what it feels like to watch hate get funded while love has to hustle, I see you.

And to the ones who think we should be quiet, patient, polite?

We’ve done that. We are that. And it still wasn’t enough to be spared, and never will be.

So I’m not hiding anymore.

I’m not shrinking to make space for people who will never see me as human.

And I’m not making myself small so someone else can feel safe in their hate.

Not today.

Until next time, I wish you nothing but sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, which are no less fictitious than the justice system that allows hate to go viral and truth to go broke.