1/ What a double standard when it comes to how the concerns of black women and white women are discussed on here. When white women were worried that "Karen" was offensive, the discourse dominated for days. When black women talk about misogyny they receive, it barely registers.
2/ I have to talk about this as I have just seen a series of tweets so cruel towards black women, so vicious in their anger about their skin colour, from those who should know so much better. And I think: where is the discourse? If we can give Karen column inches, how about this?
3/ There is a huge problem in the language used to describe black women, and dark-skinned women in particular. This is a problem as clear as it is denied. Even now I am seeing people apologise for deleted tweets. "That was years ago." Yes, and you knew it was wrong even then.
4/ I have been thinking a lot about who gets to be angry, about whose pain is at least honoured with discussion. About who is often expected to accept a gracious apology. And what bothers me is how casually the pain of some women is dismissed, just because of their skin colour.
5/ I remember a conversation with a friend of mine, a black woman working in the City. She told me about how black curves were suddenly in fashion, and white women would grab her bottom in clubs, and tell her that they envied her natural shape. She felt like an animal.
6/ Absolutely no-one benefits from writing about the realities of race. It gets you a reputation as a difficult character and that harms you in the professional world much more than it helps you. But these things need to be said.
7/ A friend of mine went to a society wedding a few months after Harry and Meghan got married and he told me that the racism he heard there towards Meghan was absolutely off the scale. I wonder how much she was shunned not just in the media but in "polite society".
8/ The joke - the cosmic joke - is that the denial of the pain of black women has shattered our society. Black women get ignored when they warn us, so when Anita Hill warned Joe Biden about Clarence Thomas we didn't listen. That is literally why we are here now. Trump, all of it.
9/ It's so hard to write this without sounding preachy or earnest but so what: if you're one of those people who thinks this is not an issue, don't send me your books for blurbs, don't ask me for tips on writing, don't engage me in light-hearted chat on here. You are not welcome.
10/ I know that what I have written is the absolute least, I just had to say it because it's grotesque, really. It's not hard to try and act with basic levels of respect and kindness. And if more of us cared, we wouldn't *waves around* be here. Right. Thanks for reading. /end
