The Nashville Operation - A Battle in the War

A thread exploring the Nashville bombing in the context of the 2020 Digital War (via SolarWinds) against the United States perpetrated by our enemies, likely China, Iran and/or Russia.

We should stop confusing what someone was doing when we became aware of them with all they are capable of, interested in, or ever hope to be

Let folks have their many talents, interests and gifts. Life is far more fun with variety, loves.

A lot of folks have come to know me as an activist & I’m grateful that folks care to know me at all.

But I wasn’t born in 2014. I was a whole teacher, executive, policy person, speaker, arts and culture lover, reader, writer, woman of faith, fashion and more before 4 yrs ago 🤷🏾‍♀️

We rightfully complain that marginalized people are not allowed to be fully human.

But we internalize and transfer our oppression daily. It’s a smog. We all breathe it in & act it out.

And then tell WoC “girl ain’t you supposed to be a _______? Why you doing ____?”

Can I live?

And don’t go reading anything personal into this-this isn’t about me necessarily and it’s no subtweet (I try hard not to do that.)

I’ve just been observing that behavior more and more lately. Especially when it comes to marginalized folks.

Evolution should be our aspiration.

“Can’t knock the hustle” should be our anthem.

As long as someone isn’t bringing active and continual harm, why can’t they explore their many sides?

As many of you know, I was apart of the white evangelical tradition. I have talked about things I learned about being Black in white spaces. Now I want to say some things about what I learned about once being a Black evangelical returning back to the Black church.

A thread.

Spending years in white evangelical churches and schools, specifically from 2012-2018, shapes Black people in more ways than we would like to admit. It shapes us to diminish Blackness, devalue our people’s story, and always test what we have against the white logic and litmus.

This is particular reality for us Black men in that space. White Christians exploit our vulnerabilities, give us the room to speak, while simultaneously subverting and devaluing Black women and their struggles and their grievances. Opportunities abound for us and we take them.

We are invited into the meetings, we are given the mic, we are asked to lead groups on race, the Black church, etc. We are asked though often we actually haven’t read or thought deeply about each. We become a weapon. Profiting and policing/punishing those who get out of line.

All the while, white Christians feel good about themselves and other Black people are left to clean up the mess we’ve made, the ways we’ve made fools of Black folk, and the harmful ways we’ve learned to think, and to preach, and to be around us. It is profoundly depressing.

Recently heard the podcast by @sikhyaent on Saravana Bhavan founder P Rajagopal, who stalked the young daughter of an employee & had her husband killed. Observations: the podcast's title ('Dosa King') glorifies PR, the script trivialises his crime, calling it a mere "scandal"

It refers to the whole stalking and murder episode as something that led to Rajagopal's "fall" - i.e a story of crime against a woman is turned into a story about the impact of the said crime on its perpetrator, not its victim.

It refers to the stalking victim as a fit antagonist for the protagonist Rajagopal, as Rajagopal's nemesis. But the point is, she set out to be neither. She didn't make him part of her life story. He forcibly, violently disrupted her life.

The podcast ends by telling us how Rajagopal's employees and friends and many others abuse the woman he stalked, for pursuing the case of her husband's murder and bringing Rajagopal to justice. It also tells us that some admire her. And it "asks us to decide" where we stand

I find it disturbing that a story of a powerful man feeling entitled to ruin a woman's life & trying to get away with murder, is turned into a story of HIS "rise, popularity, and fall".