This may be business suicide… but if it is, maybe my business doesn’t deserve to survive.

This is me declaring: I’m a business coach for people of color.

If you want to do the work of being an ally — because being an ally is more than feeling like you’re a good person and calling yourself one — and TAKE THE ALLYSHIP CLASS I’M OFFERING WITH RASHIDA BONDS on December 5th & 12th, and learn the skills for not centering yourself, I can also be your coach.

But I will be a coach for you second.

Because my commitment will be for people of color first.

I made my name, reputation, and money doing work that white people loved, that (mostly) made white people feel very comfortable.  

Up until now.

I’d rather not have a business at all than to continue to do that. 

Business that centers white people, serves white comfort, and fails to challenge white complacency — even by default — is one that actively betrays and hurts people of color.

And I am not willing to do that to us.

That’s not why I’m here.

If you’re a person of color, I am here to insist on the bigness of your spirit, defend your ideas, champion your business, and see your vision through to its fullest realization.

You will have an faithful and hardworking partner in me.

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Dear friends of color,

This is how internalized white supremacy shows up in your business.

(1) You feel like you need another certification or degree — given by white bodies and institutions — to feel qualified.

(2) You just don’t have the “right look,” and feel like you need to keep modifying and “investing” in yourself to achieve the “right look.”

And the “right look,” of course, being, the “white look.”

(3) You feel afraid to slow down and rest.

Even if your body and spirit are screaming at you to. You feel the compulsion to endlessly move at the speed of whiteness. And whiteness does not rest.

(4) You feel the need to constantly “translate” what you know and believe into a language that is palatable to the “mainstream.”

The mainstream, of course, being the white norm.

(5) When you are doubting your own judgment or decisions, you automatically assume someone who is white and has other markers of “white status” (e.g. wealthy, featured in white-dominant media, pedigreed in white institutions) knows better, defer to their judgment, and gaslight yourself out of your instincts.

(6) Given the choice, you sometimes pay white teachers over teachers of color, even when you— deep down — trust the teachers of color more. Because you don’t trust the part of YOURSELF that trusts the teachers of color.

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White people are not “the enemy”.

They are worthy and precious humans, too.

However, the prevalence of white dominant culture and racism leads to an internalized racial superiority for those who adhere to it. And their experience and attitudes are what come to define normality (source: National Museum of African American History and Culture).

And therefore, they have the power to marginalize and punish that which falls outside of that norm.

White supremacy is the enemy. Not the people.

White supremacy hurts all of us.

But it hurts people of color most.

(At some point I’m going to run out of patience explaining basic things like this. Because I shouldn’t have to. But that day is not today.)

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Practical Allyship for Life and Business takes place December 5th and 12th, and is open to all.

With love and respect, I say that this will be required learning for all allies who want to work with me in the future.

Registration is now open.