I saw this on twitter today and wolf-whistled. Let’s not even begin to consider the audacity of telling someone ‘hey, your joy is triggering for me’ but to say ‘I’m white but I still feel…’ and in the same breath to also add ‘now that you are no longer an unhappy black woman, I don’t relate to you anymore.’ – how do you even address entitlement like this?
Bomb Stephanie Yeboah said this like the queen she is: “There does need to be an unpacking of why black joy seems to make some white women uncomfortable and the issue of entitlement. I don’t expect everyone to be happy for me, absolutely not! But being made to feel almost guilty for being happy is a weird flex.”
YES YES and YES!
If half our energies go away in addressing these entitlements, when do we do what we truly want to do? And please, no, this entitled behaviour isn’t our problem, it shouldn’t have to be but when someone goes out of their way to disrupt your joy, your work when you weren’t at all interested in their lives to begin with, understand that they do it out of entitlement yes, but also because your work makes them uncomfortable so we gots to keep kickin asses, sistahs.
Rum Lola Rum 