I've been thinking a lot about who gets to speak on issues of race, police, abolition, and justice and who often does not.

Since adding "PhD" to my handle, I've noticed new forms of deference when I post about race and gender. It has become a sort of cue to some ppl that my opinion can be trusted.

For other people, my credentials are clearly unearned or counterfeit because I am a Black woman. I couldn't possibly *also* be a doctor.

Meanwhile, there are organizers and movement workers on here who have more expert knowledge in their pinky fingers than my entire PhD could ever teach me.

On the news shows, commentators defer to academics and Twitter "influencers" with big followings and book deals when organizers who have been facilitating real change in Black communities are rarely credited for their efforts.

I'm grateful to have had a life before becoming a PhD. I'm grateful that I consider myself an organizer first.

It's important to be clear about how whiteness and respectability work in tandem to privilege academic expertise over organizing expertise.

It's the responsibility of academics to defer to organizers and communities first. Academics are rarely the experts they think they are.

I've been getting a lot of interview requests and other asks recently and the first question I ask them is, "Who else are you interviewing?"

If it's all academics, I make sure recommend organizers instead.

Normalize academics being reflexive about how they show up for and with relation to vulnerable communities.

We have to do everything with intention.