“Hey Karen, you’ve been quiet lately!” Me: Yeah, just trying to figure out how to survive the next 4 to 15 years of aggressive, violent white supremacy, creeping surveillance, and digital enshittification… Thanks for your patience! ✨❤️ - ThreadSky

karenattiah.bsky.social • 69 days ago

“Hey Karen, you’ve been quiet lately!”

Me: Yeah, just trying to figure out how to survive the next 4 to 15 years of aggressive, violent white supremacy, creeping surveillance, and digital enshittification…

Thanks for your patience! ✨❤️

Comments

caddens314.bsky.social•69 days ago

This.

brosephus.bsky.social•69 days ago

I understand. I'm like Rakim myself...
"Thinking of a master plan"

I never thought I'd have to fight the same fights my parents and grandparents did, but here we are.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

In some ways it’s worse. The opportunities my father had to come here, study and build wealth are closed off to me now, or have been actively dismantled as DEI.

America is hustling backwards.

brosephus.bsky.social•69 days ago

I can't argue with you on that aspect. And it appears that things will get worse over time based on our current trajectory.

lauriemartineau.bsky.social•69 days ago

This is chilling but needs to be noted. So many are just sailing along unbothered - even many Democrats- but your reminders that this is dangerous and happening and real us important.

sirbl3.bsky.social•69 days ago

Mhmm

lunalore.bsky.social•69 days ago

🫶

blue3yednerd.bsky.social•69 days ago

Can't bring myself to click "like" on this, but I am sending virtual hugs, and will not be afraid to call people out for shitty behavior ❤️

msmads.bsky.social•69 days ago

Heard loud and clear, and ditto (although literally nobody's worried when they don't hear from me 😅).

We have tough times ahead. Self care isn't just tea and spa days; it's sleep, TCO , eating well...and making time for joy 💗💪🏼

doclb2.bsky.social•69 days ago

Truth.

seulement-moi.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yes, I agree. This isn’t going to last 5 years only. I fear this is the new US and it makes my sick.
I’m torn between staying or going.

howarddalton.bsky.social•69 days ago

For real.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

So if you notice Black people moving quieter, closer to the ground for a while, don’t be surprised.

alsorae.bsky.social•69 days ago

So much this

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

And I know white folks will post on here being like “same!”

And no, we are not the same.

Black people are trying to navigate the crackdown on DEI — our very presence at academic and corporate institutions is under active attack.

The digital organizing spaces for us have been dismantled.

obscurem.bsky.social•69 days ago

Not to diminish your horrible experiences, just a reminder that there are white trans people out there who are at serious risk of genocide in America. Pain isn't singular, it's plural

which-witch-ru.bsky.social•69 days ago

Don’t do this. There are a lot of people being terrorized by this administration - LGBTQ, immigrants, disabled, unhoused, etc. But being Black IN ADDITION TO any of those marginalizations brings additional vulnerability that do not apply to white people in those same groups, and that is her point.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

I’m not into struggle Olympics, but Black trans women were already being slaughtered at a high rate.

The fact that only now, white people are feeling “the risk” of possibly being treated like Black people is why we are where we are.

https://naacp.org/resources/ending-murders-violence-against-black-transgender-women-and-supporting-transgender

gulzarooster.bsky.social•69 days ago

Would you say that backlash against DEI work is kind of a militant, organized, bullish form of white fragility?

moira11.bsky.social•69 days ago

As an old, privileged white lady who teaches predominantly students of color coming from poverty, I want to weaponize my privilege to give my students the ability to speak truth to power, because they are the future, and they need to know privileged white people like me support them having one.

lisaywalker.bsky.social•69 days ago

Apologies. No disrespect intended. I agree that the experience you’ve will be dealt is much more difficult to live. ✌🏻

northwitch.bsky.social•69 days ago

We are horrified for different reasons, not at all the same.
There’s no way this isn’t going to be worse for you than us and my God, I am so sorry for the extra stress you’ll be forced to endure. 😔

otakuman.bsky.social•69 days ago

Being a white guy myself, I know I can’t empathize, but I can definitely sympathize.

I want to know what people like myself can do to help. I don’t want to see past efforts dismantled; especially with how much work it took to get them into place to begin with.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

I understand why so many of the great Black writers and thinkers that I admire all had periods when they decided to leave the U.S. to continue their work.

roterote.bsky.social•69 days ago

Something to even think about for right now is that moving abroad can actually vastly increase the likelihood of getting funding or opportunities. Cause the competition is significantly smaller in smaller countries and many countries have way more public grants for social and political work.

roterote.bsky.social•69 days ago

Speaking as someone who dipped out of the US south to the EU and did just that.

isawallofit.bsky.social•67 days ago

I was in Europe in ‘08 and realized how uncivilized the US truly is.

sirala6.bsky.social•69 days ago

FYI “I'd rather be in jail in America than free anywhere else." - Eldridge Cleaver, American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.

redrooster88.bsky.social•59 days ago

Everyone who can should live outside the US for a time.

hopesteffen.bsky.social•69 days ago

I will never be able to fathom the kind of pressure you & other Black writers are under in this age, & I remain truly grateful for the work that you do despite everything.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

I hear you but yeah, we can’t survive on white gratitude.

We forced to (re) making concrete plans and reconfiguring actual resources and material support to get through this.

hopesteffen.bsky.social•69 days ago

I hope I'll be able to help. Are you on Patreon, by any chance?

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•55 days ago

Now is the time for folks like me, straight white male over 40 from Alabama, to listen to what POC and LGBTQ+ need us to do. Soon it will be upon us to stand up and act on their behalf. Their fight will be much harder than ours, and they will need us to ease the burden, and not make it worse.

maiett.bsky.social•51 days ago

With respect, it's been upon you for well over a century. (Not you, personally, of course, unless 'over 40' means 140.)

oswaldphaygood.bsky.social•51 days ago

I agree 100%. But now it's do or die time. People still seem to be asleep as to what hell we are in store for. I'm trying to rally the troops, hoping my voice might make a difference if they hear it from someone like them.

maiett.bsky.social•51 days ago

May you always have a place of refuge abroad.

lisadtrice.bsky.social•69 days ago

I am understanding that more fully, each day.

1stladydi.bsky.social•55 days ago

right down to Jimi Hendrix

buffalodavid.bsky.social•69 days ago

I want an America where that is never a consideration.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

I don’t think it’s possible.

buffalodavid.bsky.social•69 days ago

I honestly hope you’re wrong.
In a nice way💙

saneplanet.bsky.social•64 days ago

saneplanet.bsky.social•65 days ago

AVERAGE AMERICAN LIFE EXPECTANCY=77
Maxine Waters = 86
Rose DeLoro = 81
Gerry Connolly = 75, has Cancer
Richard Neil = 75
Frank Pallone = 73
BIDEN = 82 👉Ran AGAINST his word
RBG = Retired/Died 87
Dianne Feinstein = Retired/Died 90

AOC, Maxwell Frost ...WTF DEMS???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEiV0VV6CKA

midnightmusings.bsky.social•69 days ago

Can confirm the subtle animosity toward us in these spaces is palpable & growing. It’s jarring when you think back on the DEI posturing of just 4 years ago from the same institutions. And then you realize that even the well-meaning liberals were secretly harboring contempt for you this whole time

nickabadzis.bsky.social•69 days ago

FWIW, my wife experienced something very similar. YANA. She was put in charge of DEI, then it was taken away from her when it became clear she took it seriously and given to someone else who wouldn’t rock the boat. Doreen Lawrence had a name for it: “Institutional indifference.”

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yup. And using now to express it. But many of us see the game and are having to move differently.

midnightmusings.bsky.social•69 days ago

I feel so lost. The people and initiatives I felt supported and uplifted by are ghosts now. Going to spend my holiday grieving and planning.

terrydresbach.bsky.social•69 days ago

YES. It is not the same…never the same.
White activists/progressives can CHOOSE to place themselves in the crosshairs via their COMMITMENT to activism, but must recognize that it is a CHOICE they can step away from at will.

Not the same for everyone else. There is no way out.

exodyne.bsky.social•69 days ago

This is exactly my playbook right now, although I didn’t realize it until reading your comment.

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

Because you’re wise, and when we *know*, we *know*.

exodyne.bsky.social•69 days ago

Yes ma’am 👏🏼

terracotta10.bsky.social•69 days ago

Here I thought I was returning to my homeland just to inter my mom’s ashes. Seems I’ll also need to take the opportunity to create a plan B.

itsstilljustme.bsky.social•69 days ago

Please don’t let it be more than 4!

karenattiah.bsky.social•69 days ago

We’ve been in it since 2016, so.

itsstilljustme.bsky.social•69 days ago

Well….I can’t argue with that.

iustitia100.bsky.social•69 days ago

I hear you and I see you.
Stay strong but safe.
Vulnerable communities need to rest up and think.

ajanleikoko.bsky.social•69 days ago

Wahalla and balava don happen. “When trouble sleep, yanga go wake am, weytin e dey find o, balava e dey fine and palava e go get o, o ho”- Fela Anikulapo Kuti. America is in a deep looloo.

doebeekeet.bsky.social•69 days ago

“You’ve been quiet lately”? I’ll never understand how grown adults who aren’t paying a person for their time and energy act as though they are somehow entitled to regular content (rant-y hot takes, detailed policy proposals, or anything else) from that person.

anim8rgirl.bsky.social•69 days ago

I’m married to a Pakistani American who was born here but his parents immigrated in the 1980’s and I’m terrified for him and his family. I work in the arts so pretty much every one of my friends are in the Fascist’s lists. I’m terrified for my black, Asian, Latino and LGBTQ friends. I’m terrified.

anim8rgirl.bsky.social•69 days ago

Sending you strength and love. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling but I know how deep the pit in my stomach is.

misscanada.bsky.social•69 days ago

Let normal people keep each other safe! 🫶

lippyjimmy.bsky.social•69 days ago

Stay strong and keep faith in the future. Four years may feel long, but resilience and unity will guide us. Change is always possible, and brighter days are ahead. We’re in this together!

meshugaas.bsky.social•69 days ago

I wake every day since November 6th with those same thoughts while the rest of the family is all exited about Christmas ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s ok I have been the Scrooge before at least in my mind I have a legitimate reason this time

xanreal.bsky.social•69 days ago

Self-care is more important than ever. It’s not selfish if you truly need it. And in all honesty, there’s an entire globe of people right now who need it 🥺

doremaus77.bsky.social•69 days ago

I know people don’t want to hear this. Get armed and get trained. Make sure your passport is active. Embrace self-defense. This government has shown they will do nothing to protect you from these fascists and white nationalists. This is real. This happening and it is not paranoia.

are-we-fascist-yet.bsky.social•69 days ago

Whew.

realmarkebenhoch.bsky.social•69 days ago

Hugs

ayahnerd.bsky.social•69 days ago

Same....

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