Amanda Fernandez MI, MBA on LinkedIn: To Activists and Advocates: Turn Away from Shaun King | 42 comments (2024)

During times of genocide, grifters will grift, & the Exclusive Uncensored Tour which features Shaun King and Khaled Beydoun is peak grifting.Shaun has had many years to practice & acquire his peak grifter status.If you would like to attend this grifter show, tickets are:$60 if you are in Montreal, Calgary or Seattle$75 if you are in San DiegoAtlanta gets a special price of $100/ticket, & it has not been made clear the percentage that will be sent to Gazans or how it will make it into their hands. Shaun is not new to grifting; Black women have warned us about him for over a decade, & it is us who are not learning. Two months ago,Erica Ifill posted and shared: “I’ve been noticing on here people defending Shaun King as a great activist who speaks out for marginalized communities.Let me tell you, he’s a grifter. He is no real activist. He has stolen the writings of many Black women, his fundraising never reaches the entities he’s fundraising for and picks on true Black activists. He’s a user and a grifter. Black women on Twitter have been warning about him for a decade. Look up#BlockShaunKingon Twitter”A few days back, Abi Adamson posted about his grifter ways & was on the receiving end of misogynoir.We should sit & think about why we continuously make the recommitment to ignore Black women. How many hundreds of years can we let this go on for?If you have fallen in love with Shaun, & you are bristling right now/got your feelings hurt by this post, it is time to examine: 1. Your anti-Black racism 2. Your Misogynoir 3. Your activism practices. This post isn’t just for the mayo sapiens.This post is also for the brown/desi community.I see you. I am you.I experience how we move, and the conversations we have when it is just us. Anti-Black racism and colourism/shadism are ripe and rampant in the brown/desi communities.We have so many slurs and derisive terms:Habshi, Kalu, Kallu, bander, kale, Kali, karumban, kaala-kaluta, Kolshyachi vakhaar, kaalundri, etc..And then our mommies and aunties with their stellar advice: “use fair and lovely and jolene, and don’t sit out in the sun lest you become dark.” Eff That. If your activism is selective then your activism is also conditional and performative.We do not get to pick and choose which marginalized groups we show up for. As June Jordan notes: “Activism is not issue-specific. It’s a moral posture that, steady state, propels you forward, from one hard hour to the next.” (Full poem in comments) **Our collective liberation cannot and will not come at the expense of further oppressing other marginalized groups.**It is not too late to interrogate your relationship with Shaun King, just as it is not too late to work on our anti-Black racism and misogynoir.When we engage in activism work, we will learn new things that require us to change and reorient how we move. And it is ok to have been wrong, and what’s more important is how we apply our new learnings. 💜

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It's Black History Month for 10 more days (and Black History is our history the other 356 days this year, too). Take 10 minutes a day to learn something new. You have 10 minutes...you do. One option: watch this from PBS featuring the ineffable Rachel Cargle and Ijeoma Oluo.It's perfect to find your resolve and the inspo to #KeepGoing. Being an activist, digital content creator, and cultural change agent, specifically for Black people, is more a calling than a choice, and not an easy "job."I understand why they did not address it in depth, as the goal was to offer hope and joy. As a person who works with social justice creators for a living, I want to acknowledge the VERY REAL AND PRESENT DANGER Black women, non-binary, or Black trans person experience when speaking up on social justice, especially racism. From my observation and listening to Black women, this barely scratches the surface. The ish/shenanigans they deal with is next level. Speaking up comes with huge risks, including threats, harassment, doxxing, and abuse. Plus, it limits income sources and job prospects, which is not something Black women who get paid a little more than half the amount that white men do, and have 10x less generational wealth. This is why I cringe when people call me brave for speaking up. THIS inequity is one that always top of mind, (and why I started Rage 2 Rainbows with Madison)–wht women can speak up ). I may get some harassment. Meanwhile Madison had death threats and people showed up at her house. If I screw up, I may get dragged on social media or "canceled" for a bit. I may even get to share my learning. My income may dip, but I won't lose everything.If a white woman walks the red carpet and "bravely" shares her MeToo moment, she may here some grumbles. She will hear even louder applause. Someone may tweet about trash about her, but she will be fine. Meanwhile, after #MeToo,Tarana Burke received so many threats from seriously hateful people, she had to take her teenage daughter and move 2 states away.Remember to show respect and compensate Black activists in your feed and community, #DoingTheWork so future generations don't have to. And remember you do not know what people are dealing with day in and day out. Tag your fave Black LI creators and drop links to their work, so we can ALL follow and support them. I'll go first! (See comments.)

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A picture is worth 1000 words.

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This is why pride should be all the time and not just during pride month. Youth are seeing the protests and the news and it is scarier than ever. September is also suicide prevention month, I’ll hit you with some stats courtesy of #thetrevorproject LGBTQ youth are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers (Johns et al., 2019; Johns et al., 2020).The Trevor Project estimates that more than 1.8 million LGBTQ youth (13-24) seriously consider suicide each year in the U.S. — and at least one attempts suicide every 45 seconds.Imagine if more leaders, organizations, companies, CEOs took a stand year round - what a difference it might make to the LGBTQ community and youths especially, and if I can wishful think for a moment - to the folks who aren’t allies - maybe they would rethink their position and show grace to others. Maybe they wouldn’t make events unsafe by protesting. Maybe they would think about what their beliefs mean for their children and their children’s generation. Maybe just maybe we would see a little less hate, a little more love and a lot less suicide.

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Yesterday someone thanked me for my "activism" and it reminded me that we need to make an urgent distinction.Right now, the most important thing for us all is that we don't allow everyday Americans to get confused about the enemy or the "politics" of the people fighting them.For most Americans "activism" connotes the far left.Across the left, middle and right, "activists" are thought of as political provocateurs; 'entitled' do-littles with too much time on their hands and too much chip on their shoulder. This is a gross, ignorant misunderstanding of the work activists do to protect us. But it's one the average person has because the State, the media and corrupt special interests have done a brutally good job of maligning them and disinforming the citizenry. As always, this is purposeful and insidious because activists pose real and immediate threat to injustice. They're the avant-garde of the rule of law, good governance and peaceful civil society. They expose the injustices that are hidden from us. They work directly on the ground. They *are* the front line to avoid State violence and illegality precisely because those of us working inside the machinery are too slow--or too scared or too censored to respond. Their bodies often absorb the first wave of violence.Activists are heroes and they come in many forms. I'm blessed and honored to have many of them in my life. But I am not an activist. I'm a teacher.A public servant.A political scientist.A mom. A writer.A literary critic.A nerd.A friend.A neighbor.I'm not at the front. I'm not a soldier at all. I'm just a regular person of incredibly strong moral conscience using what I have to help orient us all toward the truth. This is an important distinction to make because it's vitally necessary for as many individual people as possible to understand that we're far past activism. We're in the infantry stage. And that means regular people--all of us--could be on the front at any time. Whether we want to be or not. If you don't have a chip on your shoulder, you better get one fast. We must reclaim the meanings, contexts and explanations of words. We must disaggregate. It is important for people to understand the nuances now, so they can understand how much danger they're in. And who the real helpers will be when they need us. The sooner they get it, the better all our chances of survival. The better our chance of resurrecting democracy. The better our chances of saving ourselves and the other regular people of the world.By any means necessary. ✊

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Dear LinkedIn Help & LinkedIn,It seems Glenn Block has been banned from this platform in the latest round of algorithmic oppression. Glenn is a vital part of this community and has been so helpful to many of us from a business perspective for years. He's such a good human! It's wrong of LinkedIn to have banned him for advocating for other humans. Can you please help us get Glenn reinstated? He brings so much to our professional community. #linkedin #algorithm

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I hope you're all having a wonderful New Year so far. As we leave #MLKDay and enter into Black History Month, I wanted to talk about renewing our commitment to allyship. We are #allies when we stand, march, fight, and speak upin solidarity with marginalized individuals or groups. We are allies when we actively and consistently worktowards their rights and #inclusion. If you're ready to renew your work as an ally, here are thetop 5 actions I suggest for you: Reflect: Reflect, reflect, reflect, reflect. I start by looking at the books I read, the people I follow, the movies I watch, the newsfeeds I choose, how all of those build out my#biases, #assumptions, and #stereotypes, and then how they in turn reflect in myactions and words. Educate: I have spent a lot of time learning what I do not know when it comes to groups I #ally with. What are their needs? Who are the spokespeople? Who should I follow on social media? What books should I be reading? As an ally, seek out #diverseperspectives and voices - including within the groups you're allying with - and always learn from those who have lived experiences different from your own. Listen:Take the time to listen to the experiences and perspectives of marginalized voices and communities. What conversations, in-person and online, am I having, and do I listen more than I speak? And when they tell me I'm not supportive, am I defensive, or am I willing to change?Re-evaluate: Self-reflection, education, and listening all allow me the opportunity to see what #privileges I have and how I can use those privileges to challenge systems of oppression. What privileges do you have? What spaces do people listen to your voice? What platforms do you have access to? And are you using your own privileges to amplify, or to minimize, the voices of #marginalizedcommunities?Act: Allyship is not just about words, it'sabout #action. It happensby taking concrete steps and actions to support marginalized individuals or groups.Use your voice to speak out against #discrimination and #injustice. If you witness someone being mistreated,#advocate for them. Donate to organizations that support #equalrights and inclusion. Volunteer your time and resources. Advocate for policy changes that support #equity and #justice. Maintaining our allyship goals requires ongoing #education, #accountability,#reflection, and #action. By committing to these practices, wecan work towards creating a more#inclusive workplace where each and every one us gets the opportunitytobelong and succeed.

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