We Warned You: The Cost of Always Being Right.
On the burden of always being right—and the revolutionary act of walking away
When Donald Trump won the presidency on November 4, 2024, Black women—in a collective period of grief—took to social media to say, “We’ve had enough. We’re done. This is your battle to fight now. We warned you.”
Graphic photos of Black women sipping their coffee while they watched the world burn went viral. In fact, I talked about that moment in this essay:
“Other Black women are appalled at the virality of this photo, expressing concerns about ignored privilege and classism that serve as underlying messages in this photo. As Black people, especially Black women, we cannot ignore the fact that we will be engulfed in those same flames. We cannot ignore the fact that those flames will more severely burn us, just as we are always disproportionately affected by every policy and action within this society. We cannot afford to ignore the fact that 2025 is going to be just the beginning of a detrimental wake-up call and we must be prepared.”
Unfortunately, but not at all surprisingly, that last sentence aged well. 2025 was the beginning of a long-overdue and detrimental wake-up call, and now that its 2026, we are knee deep into the very violence and fascism Black America predicted would be our fortune. A fascism that white America still thinks is “new” while Black America continues to shout that this is simply a modernized version of Jim Crow. And now that we’re in the thick of it, Black people, especially Black women, are faced with the very tension we grieved just over a year ago: is this fight ours?
Black folks, especially Black women, are exhausted. We have tried, and tried, and tried again to save this country from itself. And, we continue to be ignored, unheard, gaslit, and abused in the process. Many of us felt like we did our part in this fight by being the only group to show up in droves and vote for Kamala Harris in the last election while the rest of the nation, once again, let us down. With that defeat and grief came a clearer boundary from Black women: we will no longer carry a country that keeps choosing to abandon us:
“We’re tired and we are done helping anyone who doesn’t look like “me and mine’s.” We’re being protective and selective of who and what gets our energy. We are no longer pouring our energy into saving this society from itself when it has made itself clear that it does not want to be saved — that whiteness and white supremacy will always be worth the flames. Perhaps the best we can do is separate ourselves and make sure the magic of our Blackness only benefits our community.
Is that the answer, though? Is it possible to ignore society and only protect and serve our community? Is it possible to build a flame-retardant bubble over the Black community so that we can watch the rest of the world burn without getting burned ourselves? Is the answer as simple as minding our Black business?”
Because, here’s the truth: any fire that has been ignited by white supremacy will always engulf Black people the most. White supremacy exists because of anti-Blackness. Period.
Right now, much of our focus is on the invasion of ICE in our cities—namely, Minneapolis—and both the brutal kidnapping of our immigrant neighbors and the unlawful murders by ICE of lawful observers. And, since a few of those lawful observers murdered were white people, white America has finally begin to “wake up.”
This moment has caused much of the “this is not our fight” argument to resurface. For some of us, it’s about time white people finally get a true taste of what it feels like to exist as a Black person in America—to forever be the target of state-sanctioned violence and to live in constant state of rage and fear. Perhaps this will finally be the moment white people realize that they must be the ones to dismantle the system they benefit from—and it requires literally stripping themselves of their whiteness, and possibly risking their life, to do so.
For others of us, we can’t turn our backs on humanity, no matter how exhausted we are from carrying humanity on our backs for so long. Not only is humanity, humanity, and deserves our attention no matter the circumstances, but we don’t want abandon anyone suffering under oppression the way everyone else has consistently abandoned us. As difficult as it may be, we know that if our response is to ignore suffering, we are no different than those who actively participate in our suffering.
And, of course, there’s the reality we all know to be true: every single act of fascism under white supremacy is rooted in anti-Blackness. Anti-immigration is anti-Blackness because anything that is not white or does not uphold whiteness is coded as Blackness. Blackness and whiteness is a spectrum, and Blackness is what white supremacy was built to subjugate. Attacking—or eradicating—Blackness is the ultimate goal. It has always been the ultimate goal.
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Who Actually Gets Burned?
As I’m writing this, several Black journalists—including Don Lemon—have been arrested for exercising their First Amendment right to a free press when they were covering a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minn. (They have since been released.) I don’t think it’s a coincidence that only the Black journalists and Black organizers of the protest have been arrested and not the majority of the white protestors in attendance. While both the protesters and the journalists were well within their Constitutionally protected rights, white supremacist fascism has used this particular protest as an opportunity to target the Black community. Additionally, there have been more Black and People of Color murdered and harmed by ICE, but the attention remains on the two white individuals—further contributing to the routine erasure of Black lives.
Black people are being just has burned by the flames of fascism as white people, immigrants, and other marginalized communities—if not, more. Our ultimate harm is written into the foundation of our nation. There is no escaping this.
However—given how true this is—the question still remains: is this our fight?
Should Black people continue to endure the emotional violence of always being right about this country while our warnings go unheeded and our labor further exploited? Should we continue to put our bodies on the front line, just as we’ve done for decades, knowing we will always bear the ultimate consequence?
I cannot stop grappling with this question.
Of course, with my work being in liberation, I don’t think I could ever back away from this fight. I’ve tried before. Many times. Over the holidays I sat down with my iPad, some music, and a lot of prayers while I reimagined what this work could look like for me because I felt like I was getting a bit tired of talking about white supremacy. Not only did it feel like no one cared about white supremacy anymore, but I was burning out. I felt like I couldn’t show up as my whole self—which is so much deeper, richer, and more interesting than white supremacy—because it wasn’t what I built this space around. Anytime I tried to do so, the response was crickets. No one cared about anything else I had to offer unless I was educating about white supremacy. So, I wanted to draft a plan to evolve away from white supremacy—or, at least, shift white supremacy to being just a part of what my work involves.
Yet, the more I drafted and redrafted my 2026 plans, and the more I prayed over this work, the more I realized that liberation from white supremacy will always be the core of what I do. Once work like this finds you, you don’t escape it. You can’t. There is nothing more important than fighting for the liberation of all people.
However, if I hadn’t entered liberation work five years ago, would I do so today? Would I continue this work after enduring the continued the trauma of being burned, ignored, and betrayed by white America?
Truthfully—I don’t know. I know I would outwardly and passionately support my home state of Minnesota during this specific tragedy. That’s a given. And I know I would share about the atrocities of ICE and everything else humanity is facing right now. But, would I be in the fight? Would I write the articles I’m writing and post the content I’m posting? Would I continue to endure the emotional labor of fighting white supremacy when doing so feels like punching a brick wall?
I say ‘continue to’ because, let’s be real—whether we’re directly in liberation work or not, Black women have carried this labor for generations, and each generation inherits that leftover exhaustion and burden while having to add to it with today’s fight.
As Black women, we are mothers who are scared for our children—having to educate them about navigating a system that was set up for their demise. As Black women, we are wives—having to carry the emotional burden of our spouses as we become their unloading dock and safe space after enduring an anti-Black world. As Black women, we are—in fact—Black women, who have to withstand a world that sees us as the lowest tier of humanity with no one to hold that space for ourselves, except ourselves. We have been conditioned to be the strong ones out of pure survival while being the soft place for everyone else to land.
It is out of that strength born of necessity that Black women have historically been the backbone of liberation since the beginning of this fight. Our desperation for survival in a world that treats us as disposable has left us no choice but to be the thankless, invisible backbone of movements, boycotts, and defense of human rights. I don’t say this to discredit our Black men, but behind every notable Black man in the fight for civil rights has been multiple Black women carrying the emotional and physical load, innovating and strategizing behind the scenes, and doing so without recognition or protection.
The Invisible Backbone
Our history doesn’t begin with the Civil War, but I’m going to start here with just a few examples of Black women serving as the pillar of our generations-long fight for liberation.
During the Civil War, Black women were laborers who served as “spies, regimental cooks, nurses, laundresses [and more.]” 1
During the Civil Rights Movement, Black women played crucial roles at every level. It was Pauli Murray, a law student at Howard University, who began strategizing a way to overturn Plessy v. Ferguson. It was her work that is credited with helping to “lay the foundation for the arguments in Brown v. Board of Education,…that ruled that segregation in schools was inherently separate and unequal.”2
If it wasn’t for the unwavering bravery and strength of Mamie Till Mosely, mother of Emmett Till, we would have never known Emmett Till’s name, let alone have his story be what helped ignite the Civil Rights movement in 1955. 3
Artists like Nina Simone, caught between her burgeoning fury and the uncertainty of how to wield it, used her gift in music to contribute to the liberation movement by bringing articulation to the complexity of emotions Black Americans are always wrestling with. Of course, she’s not the only artist to do this—she is just the example I have time for in this essay.
Shirley Chisholm dared to be the first Black woman to run a presidential campaign. Black women were pivotal at the core of the Black Power movement and the rise of Black feminism, or womanism. And there is so much more. From African queens to the women who organized in the basements of churches or quietly in their living rooms after their children went to bed—Black women have never relented in this fight for liberation.
We’ve historically predicted white supremacists tactics before they’ve occurred. We’ve always been several steps ahead of white supremacy in our masterful strategizing and organizing. Black women have always played their role—writers doing their thing, activists doing theirs, songwriters, theirs—but we’ve always expanded those roles, too.
Our work has never stopped with just one thing—we work, we push the limits, and we work some more.
Ida B. Wells didn’t just write about lynchings—ensuring the world knew about these atrocities that would otherwise go unreported, covered up, and silenced—she used her platform to organize economic boycotts, exposed truths about r*pe allegations between Black men and white women, and helped to found the National Association of Colored Women. 4
I could go on.
Are We Allowed to Walk Away?
The fight for liberation has always started with Black women. Some have received their due credit; many more never will. Their names may never be spoken, yet their tireless, thankless, life-sacrificing work pushed our people—and our nation—forward.
So, considering the legacy of our ancestors, do we have the privilege of taking ourselves out of this fight? Of growing weary? Of saying, “Y’all got it from here. We’re done carrying this unceasing burden on our shoulders.”
Did our ancestors have such a privilege? Surely, they too, were burned by white men and women who appeared to stand with them in the fight for justice only to move, vote, or revert in their own self-interest of whiteness instead. Did that stop them from fighting? Or did the resulting anger reignite a dimming flame?
On the other hand, should we continue in the ways of our ancestors—or is there a moment when a new strategy becomes the best way forward? Would our ancestors be telling us that our time to put our bodies on the front line has finally come to an end? That, just as the Civil Rights movement gave way to the Black Power movement, it may be time for the movement of Black people—on the front lines and behind the scenes—to finally take our long overdue, well-deserved rest? Is it finally time for us to “stand with our white counterparts on the sidelines,” just as they have always stood on the sidelines watching our fights?
A major difference? They were typically on the sidelines shouting racial epithets and citing violence. Very few white people stood on the sidelines and cheered us on. Sure, there were some. But, a majority? We know that answer.
In this case, our passiveness would simply be reclaiming the rest we’ve ignored for generations—recognizing that we’ve entered a stage in history that can no longer rely on the labor of Black people, especially Black women, to carry us through. There was always going to ultimately be a time when our nation would exhaust Black women’s labor for the last time. Was that final instance on November 4, 2024?
Rest as Political Warfare
Choosing rest, while it may seem passive, is an active form of resistance—a fervent fight for Black liberation that preserves our humanity and safety. And this is something I’d argue that has always been a part of our strategy.
One of Audrey Lorde’s most famous quotes says, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Rest has always been an act of resistance against the systems that exploit our bodies and our labor. Black women have long-known that the only way we can show up in the Liberation fight is to do so from a place of rest. However, that rest was almost always followed with more work in the fight than any of our counterparts. Is now the time to shit from rest being a part of our strategy to being the core of our strategy?
Or, must we keep going just as our ancestors did—keeping rest as a pillar of our strategy, but maintaining the action we’ve always taken? The vigorous, brilliant work we’ve always done? Full liberation cannot be achieved until Black liberation is achieved. The question is, can we achieve Black liberation if we take our rest and leave this fight up to the beneficiaries of white supremacy? Can we trust them to fight for ALL liberation?
Maybe this moment is about shifting the burden—or finally sharing it—rather than releasing it altogether. Perhaps it’s time we refuse to shoulder this weight alone—no longer allowing the rest of the world to benefit from our fight without having to join us in it. Perhaps its time to demand that white people, and other people of color with a closer proximity to whiteness, take the brunt of this fight on their backs so that our participation in the fight is not only less heavy, but no longer sacrificing our bodies to bear the brunt of the violence as we always have.
Here’s the brutally honest truth: white supremacy will never be demolished until white people realize they must strip themselves of their whiteness to do so. This can’t happen while Black women keep carrying the sole burden of this fight—keeping white folks in their comfort zone to both admire and exploit Black women’s labor from the comfort of observation.
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We Don’t Have to Hold The Whole Sky
I don’t have an answer to the original question: is this our fight? And I think that’s okay. There is so much nuance here, and we must have grace for the exhaustion, anger, and trauma we carry as Black Americans whose entire existence has revolved around not only our fight for freedom, but our fight for survival. Especially after fight tirelessly to prevent our country from sliding backwards only for our efforts to be discarded. We are all going to have a different response, and a different capacity, for this continued fight. We are allowed to sit in this nuance, this tension.
And I think it’s 100% okay for us to tell white people that it is time for them to step up and hold the majority of this burden. Not just because white supremacy has finally proven poisonous to them, too, but because an oppressive system can only truly fall when either the oppressors surrender it or the oppressed rebel and force its collapse. Either way, whiteness must be stripped, erased, dismantled.
I also think it’s 100% okay for many of us to refuse to relent. As Black women, our power is undeniable. We know we have always been the antidote to the world—our souls, our spirits, a balm for humanity. Our presence, our refusal to disappear, our fight is the ultimate disruption. It’s okay to recognize this and continue working toward that liberation, even if it’s selfishly for ourselves.
However, I do think every single Black person (not just women) should prioritize our rest more than we normally would right now. I think it is not only imperative to our survival, but our liberation. We don't have to save the world. We don't have to remain on the front lines of every fight. We’ve carried too much for too long. We’re allowed to take a step or two back. It doesn’t mean we are out of the fight completely. It just means we are protecting ourselves. And we’re allowed to do so.
I wrote my book for the people who are tired of being the moral backbone of a country that refuses to grow one. For the ones who are done performing resilience while quietly breaking. If you’re ready to interrogate what you’ve been taught to carry—and what you’re finally allowed to put down—I hope you’ll find yourself in these pages.