I’m going to talk about the tendency to center marginalized communities in messaging to audiences that have been conditioned not to care. This is not a Call Out, it is a Call IN!
Stop talking about how this bill or that law or the system is going to impact “poor people,” “marginalized folks,” “Black & Brown communities,” and start talking about how it’s going to affect YOU, “White working class” and “White rural communities”!
And no, I’m not saying that you’re not whispering about it. I’m saying it’s drowned out by your instincts to play savior to marginalized folks once more. They do not care that it affects us, in fact, the problem is that they think it only affects us. Stop talking about us! (We can do our own talking, thank you very much.)
White people need to be out there—on social media, on podcasts, in the media, everywhere and anywhere, saying how things are going to affect them! Straight Christian White people… that’s who they (MAGA) need to see is going to be affected, that’s who they need to identify with. Stop putting us up front. That’s part of the reason Black folks, for the most part, decided not to participate in the protests.
I’ve been saying this for over two years now. As soon as you say, “This bill/law will most severely affect marg…” you’ve lost them. They tune out. They do not want to hear about how things affect folks they don’t give a shit about. That’s what they voted for—to get marginalized folks out of their way.
You keep going out there with tears in your eyes, bemoaning the fate that’s befalling or will befall marginalized folks, and they just laugh. They do not care! Have we not realized this by now? Has it not sunk in? What more proof do you need than Alligator Alcatraz?
This does not mean that we marginalized folks do not have our own battles to fight or that we will stop talking and pushing and fighting for our issues, no sirree bob! Nor does it mean you can’t join us when we do our shit… but that is a separate battle than the one you need to be fighting by yourselves.
Sometimes there will be many battles at the same time. Sometimes there will be only yours, and sometimes there will be only ours. But you need to be fighting your own battle, distinct and separate from ours. We’ve been telling you this for eons, but somehow, it’s gotten lost, I think.
You still keep thinking you gotta fight “for” us and at the expense of yourself! NO NO NO NO NO! Fight your own battles on your own terms, on issues that concern you. Show them how things will affect you, and also them, for while you may not be on the same side, you are the same kind of folk.
I don’t know how to state this any clearer! Do not worry about it—for just like when we fight for us, we gain battles for you… when you fight for you, you will gain battles for us! Do you not see that? Do you not understand the difference?
Avoid words like “marginalized,” “Black & Brown,” “poor districts,” “LGBTQIA,” “liberals,” “Democrats,” “immigrants”… talk about the rights being lost, the freedoms… talk about due process (for you), book bans (for you—e.g., sad your kids can’t read Anne Frank or Catch-22 as you did as a kid), health care (yours). Find a story about how some white child was a victim of the bathroom bill—you don’t need to mention transgender folks. Talk about the tax cuts (when they expire for you), talk about your workplace losing workers and having to close (an indirect reference to immigrants), etc… talk about the thing itself.
Remember: the Civil Rights Act does not say “Black folks.” The Marriage Equality Act does not say “gay folks.” DEI includes everyone, not just Black folks. Part of the problem is that you have made these things about us only, and they cannot stand for us to have anything, so they don’t realize these things include them, because they’re only talked about in the context of us! Talk about the issues, and how they affect you.
And if they bring up Black, Brown, or other marginalized folks, turn it back to them. For example, SNAP benefits or Medicare, if they say, “Well it’s going to affect Black folks”… find something they can connect to. Do they have a child or parent in their lives on Medicaid? “Well, it’s going to affect X person you know, they’re on Medicaid.”
One thing to remember is that several points of this bill are on a timer set to go off after the midterms,so you must not let them forget that. You must not forget that. Have a countdown if need be.
You cannot force them to care. You cannot make them care. What you can do is make them think about how it’s going to affect them by showing them how it’s going to affect you. That’s it! It is useless, worse, it is counterproductive, to keep saying how things are going to affect marginalized folks when that’s their goal!
This is what needs to be done:
- Shift from allyship-as-savior to allyship-as-self-interest. White folks it’s time to start fighting your own fight and to fight smart
- Start cutting through the noise. Constant appeals to empathy have diminishing returns with people who’ve been taught that “others” are the problem. You need to speak in your own cultural-political language is not about abandoning principles, it’s about getting through the noise.
o Start talking about issues from your own perspective. You’ve been taught not to center yourselves, but that’s only when in our spaces, when in your spaces don’t “center the marginalized”
- Stop ignoring the system and start acknowledging and working through it. Everyone has to show up for themselves, in their own voice.
#TheAmericanHaitianPoet #Woke #SocialPoetry
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Muriel Vieux – July 4th, 2025 – ©All rights reserved
