prefix for one-trillionth

I feel like you get a lot of asks that amount to “I’m having feelings about racism and/or activism and I don’t quite know what to do about that.” In my experience, and I think you’ve also mentioned this, one of the first things you need to do to be an effective activist is figure out how to deal with your feelings on your own. So this is for anyone finding themselves in that position because otherwise you’re going to keep asking a Black woman to sooth your emotions about racism.

Here’s what I would suggest doing instead of defaulting to the ask box:

If you’re experiencing an emotion you don’t know what to do with, there are two things you need to do: process the emotion, and decide on a course of action.

Processing emotions: Take the time to sit with and experience the emotion within yourself. No one can do this for you, you need to actually sit with your feelings until you’re familiar with them. Even if they’re bad or scary. If you’re worried about having a “wrong” feeling that makes sense, but you’re still experiencing it. The best way to keep from hurting someone with your feelings is to process them, and you can’t do that if you’re too busy being scared of them. Don’t cheat on this part. Being familiar with a feeling means that you understand its shape and you’re not afraid of it anymore, even if its not right or not fair. Once you’re familiar with a feeling you can figure out why you feel that way. If you were taught to, if you picked it up through societal messaging, if someone made you feel that way, if its connected to any other feelings or events from your past. I find that many emotions resolve on their own during these two steps, if they’ve been doing correctly*. If your emotion hasn’t resolved at this point, it likely means something needs to change or that you need to change. Guilt is a good example here: guilt over true wrong doing should not go away just by understanding why you feel guilty.

Course of action: If, once you understand your emotions, they are still present you need to decide on a course of action. To continue with the guilt example, this might involve apologizing, educating yourself and others, or taking action to make a difference in your community. Do keep in mind that you are not owed forgiveness for harm you have caused. Additionally, you don’t have to “confess your sins” while you’re doing this. If you caused harm you should acknowledge it and why what you did was wrong, but there’s a difference between accountability and self flagellation or confessing because you want someone to tell you that what you did or thought “wasn’t that bad.”

That last one is why you should process your emotions first. As has been said a million times, the focus should be on the people who are being harmed, regardless of whether you were the person who caused that harm. I think a lot of you are running into problems with how to do that. The answer is that you can’t if you’re letting your own emotions get in the way. So learn how to process them, and learn how to use them as fuel to continue fighting. But don’t make them the problem of the people you’re trying to help.

*There are quite a number of types of nuerodivergence and mental illness that make this more complicated. Having one of those will make this harder, but you are still capable of learning how to process and manage your own emotions, even if you need different supports or help from others in your life. The bottom line remains the same.