Your first question to a Black person is about Beyoncé

I can smell someone who hasn’t had a real conversation with a Black person before from miles away. These people have absolutely no idea how to interact with a Black person (pro tip: it’s just like any other person) aside from the caricatures of Blackness they have seen in the media. I’ve been asked Can you twerk? Have you heard Beyonce’s new album? Nicki or Cardi? more times than I care to remember. The portrayal of Black people, especially Black women and femmes as sexualized gangsters, hungrily lapped up by white folks who think it’s cool, suddenly becomes really awkward when I say I like Nickelback.

We are diverse, complex humans, not music video characters.

You re-share videos of Black death

The videos are essential, I will not dismiss that. We need evidence, we need memory, we need fire for the revolution. However, Black folks do not need to see them; do not need to be scrolling through pictures of new shoes and make-up routines to come face to face with the last breath of someone who looks like them, someone who could be them in another life, or in this one.

Send them directly to your non-Black friends, with consent - these videos can be triggering to anyone. Send them your MP or Becky from marketing who doesn’t believe racism is real. Just don’t share them carelessly.

You text your Black friends that you’re ‘shocked’ about police brutality and other oppression Black folks face regularly

I am not shocked. Black folks are not shocked. There is nothing surprising or new about racism; there is nothing we haven’t seen before. We are tired, traumatized, emotional, numb, desperate, hurt and so much more, but rarely are we shocked.

If you are shocked, where have you been? Where do you get your news? The year I was born, the murder of a young Black man shook my family and I’ve thought about him ever since. After twenty-six years, I am not shocked. Why are you?

You expect labour from Black folks

After texting about how shocked you are, you then expect your Black friends and other Black folks in the community to continue to educate you - to provide links, reading lists, to do a quick lunch and learn (it’s over Zoom, so it will be super chill! We have 35 minutes and no budget, we just want you to share your story! Sound good?).

Black folks are exhausted and have already done the labour - the articles are already out there, the books are already written, the TedTalks are already available. You can check out our resources page for information, or contact us if you have specific questions.

You adopt a Blaccent out of nowhere

Black culture is cool. Everyone wants - and willfully takes - a piece of it. A hairstyle, an outfit, even the whole damn dictionary. R’n’B music is the soundtrack to every hipster restaurant and hip hop is at your Sunday morning yoga (yes, that’s a thing now apparently - like a cultural appropriation crossover?) - Black music is essentially inhaled every waking second. This over-consumption of Black culture blurs the lines between Black slang and mainstream slang. Words like hella, lit, woke, bae have become staples in Millennial and Gen Z vernacular - although I heard the kids are done with it and have discarded some of these terms like Miley Cyrus tried on and discarded Blackness for a hot minute.

Why is it that white women comment you look so pretty on their white friends pictures, and yaaaasss sis, queen, fire, you look fiiiine on their Black friends’? That’s the blaccent-outta-nowhere complex.

Your first instinct is to call the cops

When you witness an incident, the first thing you do - or think about doing - is calling the cops. This is evidence that you are not intimately aware of the consequences of police involvement. (Although you’ve likely been sharing videos of police violence for the shock factor, so that’s confusing to say the least).

Then there are people like Amy Cooper who are so aware of the perceived innocence of white women and the perceived danger of Black men, they use it to intentionally put Black folks in harm's way - definitely don’t be like Amy. (If you don't know who Amy Cooper is, google it please!)

You’re obsessed with grammar

She been got a job and she had went to work. Can’t nobody say she don’t work.

Do these sentences annoy you? Do you want to go in with a red marker and ‘fix’ them? This is AAVE (African American Vernacular English) which is used primarily by African Americans but also adopted by many other Black folks around the world. It’s a legit language with it’s own grammar structures including a verbal copula, habitual aspect marker, negative concord and many other consistent grammar rules (yes, I’m a linguistics nerd). Many of these same rules can be found in Russian, Portuguese, Italian and so on.

So, before you go saying that Cardi doesn’t speak properly, check yourself.

You take extra precautions when travelling to Africa or the Caribbean

As mentioned, anti-Blackness is a global phenomenon. The way anti-Blackness is experienced does change though, largely informed by historical projects of white supremacy and how they target Black communities in different ways. For example, the North American Black experience is largely scripted by the legacy of slavery, while the African experience is often informed by the hangover of colonialism (obviously this is not exclusive and very oversimplified).

The Western perception of African and Caribbean countries is through a patriarchal, imperial, infantilizing, neocolonial lens. We are taught to see these places as dangerous, lawless, uncivilized and many white tourists behave as such when visiting - don’t bother going if you’re going to buy a package deal from a white-owned company, overtly display distrust for the local people and take photos with the local children for your Tinder profile.

You celebrate Pride without knowing its origins

Pride is a fun event that brings thousands of people together to celebrate how far the LGBTQ2S+ movement has come. Yet for many, that’s where it ends. People, queer and straight alike, treat Pride like a party - when it’s a protest. A protest started by trans women of colour resisting against police violence.

Because our society is so anti-Black, even within other marginalized communities, the radical Black and Latinx origins of Pride, the Stonewall Riots, have been totally whitewashed. This erasure of Black and transgender history from our contemporary understanding of Pride, contributes to the fact that Black trans women experience among the highest rates of violence in North America. Some people in the LGBTQ2S+ acronym experience a lot more privilege than they did in the past - and through great advocacy and struggle - but with their increased power and social status, are leaving Black and racialized queer, trans and Two Spirit people behind.