There’s a pattern many of you are pretending not to see.
Last week I wrote about the way Charlie Kirk’s message dressed itself in “faith” while hiding a deeper rot. This week made that rot harder to ignore. While I wasn’t in the room at last night’s Palm Beach County School Board meeting, community members — including the NAACP, parents, students, and local activists — made sure their voices were heard. School Board Member Edwin Ferguson stood firm, defending what he said and making clear he chose his words carefully when speaking about Kirk and has no intention of stepping down.
But what was louder than his defense was the silence around him. There have been no formal statements from the Superintendent or other board members, no public acknowledgment of the threats of harm to Ferguson or the backlash — just quiet procedure as the room filled with people asking to be heard. That silence says as much as the protest signs did. It’s how institutions distance themselves from conflict while still maintaining the conditions that created it.
Earlier this month, the Boynton Beach Commission saw a version of the same play when Commissioner Turkin proposed a memorial for Charlie Kirk. The same man who spent years mocking DEI, minimizing racism, and platforming division — now being positioned as a civic figure worthy of tribute. Once again, the community showed up: parents, students, faith leaders, protesters — people who’ve spent their lives fighting for systems that see them.
And now, the U.S. State Department has added another chapter, revoking the visas of six foreigners accused of making “derisive” comments about Kirk’s assassination. Because apparently, tone has become grounds for punishment.
This is what happens when power starts protecting its own reflection.
The Audacity of Authority
Look north to New York Attorney General Letitia James — the slurs, the caricatures, the threats for doing her job. Look across the aisle to Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, routinely dismissed, interrupted, and insulted on national television for daring to hold her own — in her voice, her way.
Different offices, same message: a Black woman in authority breaks the script. The pushback isn’t just noise — it’s coded. It’s a pattern of microinvalidations, subtle cues meant to communicate that these women don’t belong in the seats they’ve earned or the power they carry. It’s the same bias dressed up in policy language, headlines, and “respectability” talk.
They can’t handle the contradiction — brilliance in brown skin, command in plain view, truth that doesn’t flinch. So, they call them “angry.” Because calling Black women competent would unravel the myth.
The Quiet Part Said Out Loud
Politico’s October 14 report, “Private Chat Among Young GOP Club Members,” uncovered more than 28,000 leaked Telegram messages exchanged between state and national Young Republican leaders — not outsiders, not trolls — revealing casual jokes about gas chambers, slavery, and r*pe.
They called Black people “monkeys” and “the watermelon people.” They tossed around slurs while planning campaign strategy. One even joked about Hitler. It wasn’t ignorance. It was immunity — the confidence that nothing would happen. When the messages surfaced, the excuses arrived on schedule: “Taken out of context.” “Private chat.” “Doctored screenshots.” Outrage centered on exposure, not behavior.
A political scholar quoted in Politico noted that the current political climate has made open racism feel “liberated,” less taboo among those inside the ranks (Politico, Private Chat Among Young GOP Club Members, October 14, 2025). And notice the framing of “young”, “immature” from those defending. That wording softens it, making grown adults in leadership roles sound like teenagers who simply made a “mistake.” It’s linguistic cover — a way to shrink accountability while inflating innocence. But language shapes consequence, and that’s how racism stays dressed up as immaturity.
That framing only deepened when Senator J.D. Vance stepped in to argue that those accused of sending racist texts “shouldn’t have their lives ruined.” (NBC News October 15, 2025). It’s the same tired mercy reserved for whiteness — always a mistake, never a mindset. Because when hate can circulate in private and still earn public defense, it’s no longer scandal — it’s standard.
Same Script, Different Cast
From the school-board dais to the Boynton commission chamber to the halls of Congress and the State Department podium, the rhythm doesn’t change. The same people who preach decorum are the first to weaponize it. The same institutions that call for unity are the ones drawing the line at truth. The same spirit that told Edwin Ferguson to apologize is also deciding who deserves entry into this country for speaking their mind. It’s the same story every time — new faces, same dance: policing tone → policing thought → policing borders.
Microaggressions Don’t Stay Small
We keep calling them “micro,” but the scale has shifted. Last week it was tone-policing in a boardroom. This week it’s visa revocations — the U.S. State Department stripping entry from six foreigners who posted “derisive” comments about Kirk’s assassination.
That’s the same script, turned into policy:
“Don’t say that, it’s rude.”
“Don’t question that, it’s un-American.”
Civility, weaponized. This is how racism hides in plain sight — not always through slurs, but through performance. A raised eyebrow during a meeting. The polite pause before crediting a Black colleague’s idea. The “I didn’t mean it like that” after a cutting remark. A “compliment” about how articulate someone is. The expectation that we educate while being dismissed. Everyday moments that say, without words, “you don’t quite belong here.”
The fact that y’all insist on telling the receiver how a message should be received is another microaggression in itself. Tone-policing isn’t about communication — it’s about control. And thinly veiled racism is still, in fact, racism.
The DEI Lens
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion isn’t corporate optics; it’s a framework for truth. It’s the discipline of asking who benefits, who’s harmed, and who’s missing from the table.
DEI isn’t just about trainings or slogans — it’s about literacy. Knowing what a microaggression is means being able to name the daily abrasions that shape how people show up at work, in classrooms, and in community spaces. Understanding microinvalidations means recognizing when harm is denied because the person causing it didn’t mean to. That awareness changes how teachers teach, how managers lead, and how institutions make policy.
Without that awareness, bias becomes invisible — until it isn’t. And that’s where intersectionality comes in. It’s the understanding that our identities — race, gender, class, ability — don’t exist in isolation. They overlap, and those overlaps shape how we experience systems built without us in mind. Equity work that ignores that intersection misses the point. That’s what we’re seeing now as Special and Exceptional Education programs face funding cuts and political backlash. DEI teaches us to ask why those cuts land hardest on children already navigating systems not designed for them — students with learning differences, differently-abled individuals, multilingual students, and families who don’t have the resources to fill the gap.
When you strip DEI from institutions — from health systems to local governments, corporations, and courts — you don’t just remove a “program.” You remove the language people need to understand inequity itself. You make it harder for educators to see how race, disability, and poverty intersect. You silence the vocabulary that helps parents advocate and teachers intervene. And without that structure, systems revert to default — the kind that always leaves somebody out.
When systems revert to default, it’s not just oversight — it’s enforcement. We see it in how officers, border patrol, and ICE agents treat Black and brown people like suspects first and citizens later — if at all. The same mindset that dismisses a student’s voice in the classroom becomes the one that justifies an officer’s overreach on the street or a raid that tears a family apart. And now, states are codifying that bias. In Florida, laws like the so-called “Halo Law” and others dressed up as “public safety” measures quietly expand surveillance, restrict movement, and criminalize proximity — particularly for immigrants, protesters, and the poor. They give police and state agencies broader reach under the guise of order, while narrowing the rights of those already living under the heaviest scrutiny.
That’s not law and order — that’s selective enforcement made legal. It’s what happens when DEI is stripped away and replaced with fear disguised as protection. I say this not just as an observer but as someone who has studied and lived this work. My passion for DEI comes from seeing what happens when it’s absent — the way silence turns harm into habit, and the way awareness can change a system from the inside out. I believe in its premise because it isn’t about guilt or division. It’s about clarity, accountability, and repair.
DEI isn’t about division — it’s about understanding. It helps us see where systems fail people before those failures turn into policy. And when you strip it away, the gaps don’t disappear — they widen. The people who were already unseen just fall further into the cracks.
Through that lens, it all connects — Ferguson speaking truth when it wasn’t convenient, the NAACP showing up when it counted, and women like James and Crockett standing firm in spaces built to silence them. Different scenes, same struggle.
Here’s how these stories connect:
- Impact over intent. Harm lands whether or not someone meant it. Understanding this prevents “I didn’t mean to” from becoming a shield for harm.
- Power over tone. When institutions decide whose speech is acceptable, civility becomes control. DEI reminds us that discomfort is not disrespect.
- System over incident. School boards, commissions, visa policies, and education budgets are just different rooms in the same house — each built on the same foundation of selective empathy.
That’s why DEI still matters. It gives language to what we’ve been made to feel but not name — and that language saves lives, classrooms, and futures.
Christianity in Contradiction
The same crowd clutching crosses keeps forgetting what those crosses meant — or the fact that they were often burned while Black people swung beneath them. Billie Holiday once sang of the “strange fruit” that hung from Southern trees, a melody that still haunts the soil. It wasn’t just a song; it was a sermon about what happens when a nation baptizes its brutality.
It’s strange how faith gets loud about forgiveness but quiet about accountability. How quickly mercy shows up for the powerful, but not for the people they harm. If your faith shields the powerful instead of the harmed, that’s not gospel — that’s comfort. And how comfortable we’ve all become with policing Blackness — in pulpits, in boardrooms, in public meetings where the truth makes someone shift in their seat.
Memory as Mirror: Thirty Years Since the Million Man March
Thirty years ago today, the National Mall filled with a sea of Black men — not shouting, but standing. The Million Man March wasn’t chaos; it was choreography. A collective act of discipline, dignity, and defiance.
They came to say what the system refused to hear: that being accountable to your community isn’t the same as bowing to it. That love of self and love of people are not contradictions. BET’s reflection this week captured it well — the March wasn’t flawless, but it was foundational, a moment that redefined what strength looked like for Black men and for Black America.
And here we are, three decades later, watching a familiar play unfold.
Back then, they called the men “angry,” “divisive,” “radical.” Today, those same words get recycled for anyone who refuses to shrink. Different setting, same script — tone-policing dressed as civility, control disguised as conversation.
The Million Man March didn’t just gather bodies; it gathered resolve. It was the physical manifestation of what DEI tries to name — collective accountability, intersectional awareness, and belonging without permission. It was men confronting themselves while confronting the state, insisting that self-respect and systemic critique can share the same breath.
That day wasn’t nostalgia. It was blueprint. Because we’re still marching — sometimes in council chambers instead of city streets, sometimes through policy memos instead of protest chants. But the spirit hasn’t shifted. When we speak, stand, and refuse to apologize for existing in full, we’re still echoing that day.
Faith without justice is still noise. And every quiet act of truth-telling, every demand to be seen without translation, is a continuation of that march.
The Last Word
You can revoke visas.
You can pass resolutions.
You can issue press releases calling for “decorum.”
What you can’t revoke is the truth. And as long as the truth keeps breathing, we’ll keep doing what we do best — calling a thing a thing.
“I’m not interested in making whiteness comfortable. I’m interested in telling the truth.” — Austin Channing Brown
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