It strikes many as hubris, and it may very well be, but if I do not insist one honors my stock, I will live a life under the presumption it is "shared" as my duty.
Yeah, that's a no. It is a thunderous gift, and one to which none is *entitled.* This year, my message will be clear: one enjoys our company by our choice, but only AFTER having earned the right to engage us. Do not engage us as if that gift is yours to waive. It is ours, and only ours, to give, and the starting block is no. We'll tell YOU when you've crossed the finish.
****Especially with White men.*****
In fact, one of my frequent flyers got an eff-bucket of truth. Dude totally quit me. I'll drop it below, but bruh - do we strike you as light weights? LOL. You treat a black woman like a fuck buddy, you better be packing a bazooka - for yourSELF, btw.
(You should know this one - I'm pretty sure he thinks you and I are one person: "Here is a question for you. Is there anything that a White person could say to you, or Marley K. - anything at all - that would convince either of you that the person was not racist? WCMTS - what could Mother Theresa say?").
MICHAEL: I'm thrilled to have risen to the top of your list of White People to Deprecate. I'd turn that back on you but I don't do stupid. I'm sure my fam'll find this funny, tho.
ME: Hello, Michael. I feel disingenuous to let this go unsaid. Please forgive my lack of social graces.
I do not care for you, Michael; not even slightly. What I do here is no game - caustic humor and irony are simply tools to stay my hand. I can, as I am sure you can imagine, be quite cruel. But I respect your right to have opinions, share them, disagree. I open myself up to that by moving and engaging in public space. I will not cry foul for my own choices. My burden is mine alone; I am entitled to no load-sharing.
Still, in my silence on that point, I have laid the groundwork to be badly misread. I find your conduct abusive, and in extraordinarily bad form. I find that you move through my world on the prowl for what offends you. I find that when you encounter something you only believe you understand, you feel free to deploy scorn, ridicule, derision, mockery belittlement, whatever suits.
I am unwilling to continue entertaining it. I plan to move these experiences before the public, and let the light judge us all.
What I suppose I will never forgive is how self-servingly reductive so many of the good among you are. . . . Surely we cannot all be misled, off-putting, intellectually underdeveloped? But no - there is no end in your line for counselling our conduct amidst genocide.
Ahh, . . . had it only, at some point in these 400 years it occurred to us to _______ (moderate tone, delivery, messaging, attitude - just depends on whose turn it is). Pity, that - no one in centuries thought about messaging, or how to say "thank you." Think of how much pain we could have saved ourselves had we known "thank you" killed White monsters.
Have you even the slightest idea how galling a display of over-simplification you have on constant display? I most assuredly do. To condescend to us - and about us - as if you are among the smartest people in the room is a disservice to us, to this, to you. So what you detect is not me enjoying myself. It's me working very hard to leave intact your viscera.
But I have tired of being the subject of casual entertainment for the simpleton in aggregate. You are not simple, but your conduct unmistakably is. Enough.
I am sure this will make lovely addition to what promises to be a truly entertaining portfolio for your family and friends.
Be Best
MICHAEL:
