Toni, lissen…
You said you came “woman to woman.”
But let’s get this straight:
You came to colonize my inbox with a crash course in My Ancestors 101, an unsolicited TED Talk about your French fleeing Napoleon, your Germans dodging Hitler, and a scrapbook of ethnic trauma you’ve collected like it’s the diversity aisle at Hobby Lobby.
You wore your pain like a beaded dashiki, dusted off Lift Every Voice and Sing, and marched straight into my DMs to explain why your whiteness was the good kind.
A Charcuterie of Identity
You told me you were white—but also Italian, but also Scottish, but also Native, but also Jewish, but also very much not racist. Girl, you listed so many ethnicities I had to stop and check if I was reading the United Nations roster.
“I can provide proof…”
Toni, nobody asked for your Ancestry.com password. This wasn’t a genealogy bake sale.
And that “some of my ancestors fought for the North” line? Do you think that’s a moral victory lap? The Union wasn’t Wakanda. Fighting for the North didn’t make someone an abolitionist. It just meant they fought for a different kind of control.
Your Feelings Ain’t the Story
The real kicker? You weren’t reaching out to converse. You came to correct. To redirect. To “open my mind” to your lived experience… while dismissing mine.
You told me how talented I was—right before suggesting that I misuse that talent by choosing “hate” over help.
Toni, what you call hate, I call clarity.
Do you really mean it’s hateful that I center Black voices over white comfort? That I use my platform to name systems instead of soothe feelings? That I won’t sacrifice truth at the altar of white fragility?
Because, sis… if that’s hate to you, then maybe you should meditate on that.
Whew, the Audacity
And THEN you had the nerve to ask me not to reply with “obscene language and insults.”
That’s how I know you knew you were out of pocket.
You braced for the drag you earned before I even opened my mouth.
You saw yourself in the mirror I held up—and winced.
Not because I lied…
But because I told the truth in a voice that didn’t coddle you.
Let Me Be Clear:
Toni, I ain’t Barbara.
And you damn sure ain’t Shirley.
You didn’t call to save what’s yours.
You called to trespass on mine.
You came humming the tune of peace while holding the sheet music of control. You didn’t want a conversation—you wanted absolution. You weren’t seeking dialogue—you were demanding my deference.
But let me say this:
The bed this truth sleeps in?
I BUILT IT.
The books it reads?
I WROTE THEM.
The freedom it loves?
That’s mine.
From the crown of its head to the sole of its radical, unbothered feet.
So no, I won’t be stepping aside.
I won’t be toning it down.
I won’t be editing for your comfort or making room for your tears at a table you didn’t help set.
Final Verse
Woman to woman?
Don’t do this again.
Not like that.
Not with genealogies weaponized as guilt shields.
Not with warnings dressed as wisdom.
And definitely not with the assumption that my history needs your permission to matter.
You told me you were 60 years old.
And yet your words were still unseasoned, unwanted, and rooted in the need to feel right—rather than to be real.
Toni, if you wanted a dialogue, you’d have come with questions, not declarations.
You would’ve listened, not lectured.
But since you decided to stand in the pulpit of your own perspective, let me respond from mine:
I said what I said.
And I meant it.
Woman to woman,
Respectfully,
That’s all you’re getting.
