I’ve been thinking of how to say this for most of today. But here goes.

A large number of black women on this app have spent the last couple years being tone policed, attacked, and labeled “toxic” just for existing, refusing to cave to propaganda, and defending their beliefs.

Even if you had a good reason to drop a bomb on an important icon of that community, there’s no reason to do it with a tone-deaf sledgehammer.

But...

The reality is that you probably don’t need to drop the bomb *at all* because when you follow more and more BW, you discover that there is almost always someone *within* the community addressing the problem with nuance and authority those outside the community don’t have.

So a good rule of thumb to follow is that if you cannot find a BW to amplify who is already addressing the issue, you are probably (1) swinging out of your lane and (2) missing important perspective/nuances.

But amplifying usually means de-centering yourself and your own perspective and that’s where a lot of us WW fuck up.

Learning from our fuck ups is important, but so is apologizing because every one of our fuck ups takes a toll on a community that is already embattled daily.

Anyway. I guess my point is, don’t just watch the car crash, try to learn from it. That way maybe you don’t have to learn learn the same lesson the hard way or end up causing the same kind of unnecessary collateral damage.