I Know Where I've Been

Being Black, I already know how it feels to be judged by the actions of the worst people in my group, to be the object of collective disdain and the target of collective punishment, to be perceived as guilty by association, to be met with unwarranted disgust, to be treated as unwelcome, unwanted, and untouchable, all because of stereotypes and generalizations. Lately, other more privileged Americans have been getting a little taste of what that's like as social media accounts from users who claim to be based outside the US issue rage-filled posts accusing all of us of not doing enough to stop our evil, illegitimate president and his villainous regime. And before I let their invective get under my skin, I stop myself, give the posts the side-eye, and say, "I know you're not talking to me!"

I know where I've been. I know what I've done to try to prevent all this before it started. All the years of voting. The boycotts. The phone calls and e-mails and letters to representatives. The petitions I've signed. The meetings I've attended. The rallies and marches I've been a part of. The art I've made and books I've written. Only to be told to shut up or leave the country, or even to "get a job" when I was actually participating in a protest on my lunch break. All these years, trying and failing and being ignored. Rarely seeing any of it come to fruition. Trying not to become demoralized. 

Ella Baker said, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.” Angela Davis said that “freedom is a constant struggle.” In the Black National Anthem, James Weldon Johnson wrote, “let us march on ‘til victory is won.” And yet in 2025, social media accounts with Black faces in their profile pictures said, "this is not our fight." How strange.

I can't help but wonder how much of this is a form of psychological warfare. Bots plant the seeds and legit accounts water them. Some of the accounts spreading these ideas are suspicious, but I also saw an account for a Canadian wooden toy company joining in. This has been happening for almost a year, and on Bluesky too, not just on Threads and Twitter, as infamous as they've been for their manipulative algorithms.

As a result, instead of coalitions and solidarity, we have wedges driven between us. I believe that most of the common people of the countries of the world have more in common with each other than the ruling classes that seek to divide us with their bot campaigns. They don't want another movement like the Arab Spring, Occupy or Black Lives Matter to take off on social media because it threatens their power.

It seems like many have tapped into the destructive, lizard-brained desire that some people have to watch the world burn. Some of the messaging encourages violence. According to them, every protest march I've ever been to was meaningless because no one set anything on fire. Meanwhile, they have no idea what people in Chicago have been dealing with since Trump declared war on our city, and I suppose our Black mayor and Lieutenant Governor were also supposed to rest or sit this one out or whatever because they voted the right way in November 2024 instead of publicly and unapologetically standing up for their constituents at rallies. (See how nonsensical that way of thinking becomes in real life?)

Anyway, I don't believe in wasting my time explaining my actions to strangers on the internet. I have nothing to prove to the discouragement bots and their hive mind of followers. I know what I've seen. I know what I've done. I know where I've been.