Thread by @JennMJacksonPhD

Reflecting this morning on courage and vulnerability after encountering Brene Brown's work for the first time this week.

I really think we have to talk about race and gender every single time we talk about doing courageous things.

Courage and vulnerability require so much of us. And, I keep thinking about my Black foremothers and ancestors whose courage was about evading the noose or marooning from slave plantations.

I'm not sure courage and vulnerability are big enough containers for Black willpower in the face of white violence.

Having courage to finish that swim meet or ask for that big raise isn't like having the courage to be Black in a country that wants us dead.

So, what do we call Black survival against the white supremacist state? It's bigger than courage, yes?

The other side of courage is considering the stakes. What are the stakes of being Black in public? What are the risks of Black courage?

I guess that's where my work comes in.

When I talk to young Black people about courage, they tell me that they know that the costs are high.

Courage to speak up against racism, courage to protest unjust killings of Black folx, courage to fight. The costs are too high for some.

I think it's easy to tell people to have courage when you've never been at-risk of losing your job or being assumed a threat because of it.

The conditions of anti-Blackness and white supremacy effectively outstrip the utility of courage for Black people.

We need more and better.

Like everything in society, even courage and vulnerability are mitigated by race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, etc.

Courage is not objective, unfortunately. Courage, in many ways, is really for white women.

For many Black folx, courage is the very thing the State uses to incarcerate them or put them in an early grave.

I would argue that Black trans women are probably the most courageous people of all. But, the conditions of their existence don't even allow them to be the Brene Brown's teaching people about it.

That matters, right?

I think this new Courage Culture™️ led by middle class white women with stories to tell is sexy to a lot of people. But, as everything, we have to be careful about embracing it wholesale.

Middle-class white women are publishing three, four, and five NYT bestselling books teaching people how to stand up for themselves. Many without ever accounting for the fact that they are protected and therefore *permitted* to have courage.

It seems like it would be pretty easy to be courageous when no one is threatening to kill you for it.

White women are so central to white supremacy.

They literally mother the children who grow up to hate us. They typically vote with their conservative husbands. And, they often oppose policies that support Black, Latinx, queer, trans, and disabled people if given the choice.

I'm truly not sure what to do with courageous white women.

I just hope Brene Brown tells all her millions of followers to fight for and support Critical Race Theory and to learn about Black trans women's lives. Then, I hope she tells them to do something about it. To organize. To activate.

To me, that would be pretty courageous.

I guess what I'm saying is: wouldn't it be more courageous for white women to disinvest from white supremacy? isn't that what it looks like to really have skin in the game?