When to speak.

When NOT to speak.

I was talking to my BFF a few weeks back. We have been BEST friends since the second grade. She is Korean American and has always been honest with me. I have always been an EMOTIONAL decision maker and she always a practical factual decision maker. We balance each other out for sure. She said to me: “I’ve been looking at your social media and I think you should be very careful with your race posts. You have three posts in a row that deal with race. You should think about spacing them out otherwise people (white) might start thinking of you as an “angry” black woman. 😬 We both laughed but we both knew it was true.

I heard her.

At the time, I thought she was right. Most of my friends and co-workers are white. I don’t want them to think I am ‘off the wall’. So I started silencing myself. Trying my hardest to be real about my life as a black woman in NorthEast Ohio, with MANY white friends, married to a white man, three beautiful biracial (brown) children, working in a profession where you can count on your fingers how many black yoga teachers you know.

I began trying to S P R E A D out my posts regarding race.

THEN this morning as I was speaking to my father. He was raised during segregation and the civil rights movement.

He said to me. “I closed my mouth a lot of times because of my safety. Many times if I spoke to loud there was a chance that I could be beaten or Tied up and drug behind a car and white people would have no fear of consequence back then.

I worked hard so that my children CAN speak. So you speak. We are in a time in this country that is very close to that terrible time. You speak as loud and as often as you need to, until people start to hear.” So.. I will not be silenced. I will not worry about spreading my messages out so that it is “MORE digestible” for some. I will not stand by and watch others be mistreated or disrespected.

Will I lose followers/readers/students?

Maybe.

BUT

I can make one promise...

I will do my BEST to speak with love and compassion to all. Because in the end, LOVE AND COMPASSION WILL PREVAIL.

#weareNOTallthesamebutweAREallequal and THAT is beautiful.