When you're privileged, hard-working, lucky, but not stupid or blind, assume good faith as part of your humility.
When you're not, when the ducks aren't all lined up for you, well, do you.
You're allowed to be suspicious. You'd be stupid to not be.
Do your best. Be kinder than you know how to be.
And remember, anger and kindness aren't opposites.
Say what you need to say. The world can, I can, we can, take the hit.
My only advice: sit with it as long as you can.
I hang with lots of people who say the most outrageous and awful things about old white cishet (-ish) men like me.
Sure, I get pissy about it from time to time. Everybody gets pissy sometimes.
But I don't follow people who aren't playing for keeps, and when one plays for keeps, one says the thing and trusts one's people to be able to roll with it.
I can, broadly but not universally, roll with it. Those times I can't, I try to withdraw and get the strength and solace I lack.
I came to hear.
I'm down with assuming your good faith, by and large, and I don't need you to assume good faith with me.
I need to have good faith.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Here's "At The Ballet", from the original Broadway cast.
I remember the day I heard it the first time. My mentor T took me and a couple others to see B, who'd let our community theatre scene. And we drove some hours to go to B's house.
I was just a kid, maybe 15? And B's house was exquisite, far classier than I'd yet encountered. And I adored them both, of course, mentors. And she had a pre-release tape. None of us had ever heard or seen the show.
I use this to introduce the kids to jazz, cuz of that piano.
But. Alone. At night.
I just sing it to the trees.
Mom, ya know, mom was a pretty hurt cookie, not well at all, tho decent, I'm not saying any abuse-like shit. And of an evening, she'd have a beer, and would put a record on our record-player. It wasn't a stereo, we were poor as fuck, but a record-player.
I'mo not bust someone cuz they sibling was fucked up. My sibling was an abuser. I done some bork things in my life, but not like that. Having a family member who committed evil is not a legitimate criticism.
Yeah, I know, awkward.
Predators live in the spaces where we don't talk about it. Cuz, you know, it's awkward.
Coaching Pro-Tip: When the developers act like testing the code is a time-wasting checkbox that costs a great deal and rewards very little, they are usually right, and one has to find out why, and tackle that, before pressing them to test more.
In test-after shops, it's quite common to set a test goal, usually but not always expressed in terms of coverage numbers. Once this is done, the org begins to press the developers to meet that goal.
My experience is that this kind of pressure backfires way more often than it succeeds.