Everybody, let’s talk about it: 🧵 I picked my daughter up from after-school on Friday, and a little Black girl had braided her hair. My first instinct wasn’t “how cute”- it was pure frustration. Because it felt like a double standard. I’ve spent YEARS drilling into my kids heads: You NEVER touch a Black person’s hair. We treat it as an absolute non-negotiable out of respect. So to walk in and see someone else freely touching, pulling, and styling my daughter’s hair felt unfair. Why are my kids expected to hold this strict standard of physical boundaries, but those same boundaries aren’t extended to them? My daughter’s scalp was red and bleeding a bit from tension. She’s also had a terrible headache all weekend. The Black girl used products (I’m not even sure why she would have them at school) that were very think and oily. We’ve spent most of the weekend trying to wash it out. The other thing is that she used combs and brushes brought from home. There were other kids who had also gotten their hair done. That scares me from a basic hygiene standpoint. You never share unsterilized hair tools- that’s standard health protocol to prevent things like lice or scalp infections. We all know that. It feels like another basic rule that was completely ignored. Did my daughter actually mind? No. She loved the style. But that’s not the point. My concern is not erased simply because my daughter thought it was fun. My daughter not being upset does not mean I have to be okay with what happened. The lesson here is: keep your hands to yourself. Children can enjoy an interaction and still need adults to establish appropriate boundaries around their bodies. My daughter has bodily autonomy, just like anyone else, and I absolutely believe that should be respected. She was violated and taken advantage of. All because she wanted to be accepted and be friends with these girls. It breaks my heart. And then there is the question of how I even talk to this little girl’s mother. Because I am upset. I don’t want to have a fake, overly polite conversation where I minimize what happened just because the girls are children. My daughter is still my child, and I am angry that another child felt comfortable touching and styling her hair without asking. I want everyone held responsible for negligence. If they staff were doing their job, how could entire heads of hair get done?

Inferno paternal, reigns eternal Everybody, let's talk about it: 🧵 Hey Chamieka, I'm writing this in serious frustration, and I need some advice because I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. I've taught in the same district, same school, for 14 years. I've had plenty of chances to leave. I stay because I grew up in this community before it took a turn, and it still means something to me. We started back August 3rd. Like we do every year, teachers called every family to introduce ourselves and see if they had questions. I've got 28 kids in my class. Maybe 8 families picked up or called back. Parental involvement gets worse every single year. It's easy to point fingers at schools and teachers, but the parents are the problem. I mean that. I want so badly for them to get engaged with what their kids are learning. Some of these kids are sharp, genuinely going places, no question. But their parents have their priorities so jacked up. And I want to be clear, this isn't just Black families. Latino families too. Why does a 5th grader need wigs, acrylic nails, and fake lashes for school? Why are preteens showing up in belly shirts and shorts that are way too tight and too short? In 14 years I never saw this until about 3 years ago, and it's only gotten worse. I wish we would just go back to uniforms although I think they’d find a way to pimp that out, too. On Monday I sent a student to the nurse to get her nails cut off because she couldn't hold a pencil. So it's not just inappropriate, it's actually getting in the way of them learning. Even that went awry because she went home and lied to her grandma about it. The grandma said that she (my student) used money her mom sent her to get them done. Which is heartwarming because I know her mom is just coming out of jail in another state, but she literally could not participate in class!!! I was asked to replace them and I absolutely will not. Why pour that kind of money into looks and send the message that it matters more than school does? A classroom isn't a runway.

Jason Aldean is opening up about the aftermath of his song "Try That in a Small Town." The song proved to be controversial, with some accusing it of being racist. Aldean said that some of his own crewmates confronted him about the song. It was very frustrating for Aldean. Aldean recently said, "Here's my issue—when you're riding around on a tour bus that I'm paying for, and I'm feeding you three meals a day every day and a paycheck to pay your rent, or whatever it is, and you're out there on those buses in our catering and you're bad-mouthing me and our crew, you got to go." He also shared, "We were very proud of that moment, and we know what we meant by it, and there were some people in our crew that found it okay to disrespect it. You don't have to like the song, say what you want to say. But you started drawing attention to it out in public." Aldean didn't understand the backlash to the politically charged song. According to Aldean, he didn't single out any race in the song or the music video. "There was people of all color doing stuff in the video. That's what I don't understand," he told CBS News. "There was white people in there. There was Black people. I mean, this video did not shine light on one specific group and say, 'That's the problem.' And anybody that saw that in the video, then you weren't looking hard enough in the video, is all I can tell you." Critics latch on to the fact that Aldean filmed the music video at the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tenn. It was the site of a lynching in 1927. However, Aldean said that he didn't know the history of the location or that a lynching had taken place. "But I also don't go back a hundred years and check on the history of a place before we go shoot it either," he said. "It's also the place that I go get my car tags every year. It's my county that I live in." ______________ Tldr; Bad Apple: Racism would need to be explicit and intentional to count. Token Diversity: Black people appearing in the video becomes evidence against racism.

Another case study, brought to by Conversations in Whiteness... Everybody, let’s talk about it: 🧵 Chamieka, I need some honest advice because I’m fuming and I don’t know if I’m going about this the right way. For context or why I’m submitting this is because it’s a Black owned business. A little background: I’ve lived in Brooklyn my whole life. I’m 52. This is home. I’ve watched this borough change so much over the years, and I’m usually not one of those people who complains every time something changes. But this one is bothering me. For about 12 years now, I’ve gone to the same coffee shop almost every Saturday. Sometimes Sunday too. Sometimes I go alone, sometimes with my partner or friends. I know the staff, they know me, and it’s just become one of those places where you feel comfortable. A little routine. A little community. And I’m someone who really tries to support small businesses, especially Black-owned businesses in the neighborhood. I don’t just say that. I actually try to spend my money that way because I know how important it is for these places to survive. The previous owners were amazing. Their child got sick and they were struggling financially, and I actually organized a GoFundMe to help them get through a tough time. The community showed up, but eventually they had to make the decision to sell. The new owners came in and did a meet-and-greet two weeks ago. They seemed nice enough. They talked about wanting to respect what was already there and keep the spirit of the place. The old owners had asked them to keep certain things in place, and they said they would consider it. But pretty quickly, things started changing. The biggest thing was the pet policy. They decided no dogs would be allowed anymore. Not inside. Not outside on the patio. Nothing. That really pissed me off because dogs have always been part of this space. People would walk their dogs, stop for coffee, sit outside, talk to people. It was never an issue. If anything, it brought people in. It was part of what made the place feel like a neighborhood spot.

Everybody, let’s talk about it: 🧵(two day care related stories below 👇) first one.... I’ve got a submission for the page. I am a white woman running an in-home daycare, and I truly love all my daycare kids like they are my own family. But over the years, I’ve noticed two things that are a regular pattern with a lot of my Black moms 1. being late for pickup and 2. They “forget” their sippy cups/water bottles, snacks, diapers or wipes. So I end up going into my own pocket to purchase those items. It’s so draining and my husband is getting fed up. The costs really add up. I've always tried to give them extra grace and patience because I know a lot of them are single mothers trying to balance everything on their own. I completely understand needing someone to watch your child so you can run errands, get things done, or even catch a moment of self-care when you're rushing around. But taking care of your personal to-do list shouldn't come at my expense or eat into my own family's evening. My white parents almost always text me 10 or 15 minutes ahead if they're stuck at work, so it feels like a deliberate choice when others just show up late without any warning. To make matters worse, some of them will claim they were stuck in traffic, but then they walk up to my door with their hair freshly done or a brand new set of nails. They are clearly lying about traffic at least some of the time, which just feels like a slap in the face when I've been sitting there holding up my own dinner. I eventually started enforcing a steep late fee to put a stop to it, especially since some of them receive childcare assistance, so I figured a financial boundary would help build better routines. Which I am open to helping them build out. Instead, a few of them just pay the fee every single week without batting an eye, almost like my personal time is just a service they can buy whenever they feel like it. It makes me feel like my kindness is being taken advantage of. Like they are used to taking advantage of innocent people for their own gain.