A criticism that is often launched at Black folks, is that we won’t criticize other Black folks. That is in itself a bold face lie, we’ve criticized many a Black Fallen Idol, heck we’re usually the ones outing them. But, it is true that there are certain topics we won’t discuss with white people and there’s a reason for that.
I’ve got this friend, he’s the sickly old man I’ve talked about before, he’s alone in the world and he’s got a good brain on most things. But like many a white person he doesn’t like to think he has innate racism and gets in a huff when I call him out on it.
One day before I realized this, we were talking about the racial discourse online and I made the comment that sometimes Black folks push back too harshly on certain topic, but it’s due to frustration. We moved on. But then for the next few weeks every time we would touch on the issue of race, he would find a way to bring back that statement I made as some sort of disclaimer “like you said” “remember when you said” until one day I blew up at him.
And that’s the thing, often when we forget ourselves and open up about something to white people, that disclosure is used against us or against other Black folks to validate racism in other context. While some do it innocently enough, others view these exchanges as a license to berate Black folks and they start their own critiques of Black folks with all the latent biases they hold, unable to tell the difference between a Black person critiquing their own and them doing it. And that’s why we have to guard our words and critics of each other from white people.
For those of you fortunate enough to find yourselves recipients of intimate criticism of Black issues by a Black person, treat it with the respect it deserves. Think of it this way, I can call my brother an ass when sharing a story with you, but if you were to call my brother an ass, we’d have problems.
And before some of you jump in here with “not all white people” it doesn’t matter, we can’t tell which one will use our words as weapons, because we’ve been betrayed too many times by those who should know better, those closest to us.
As with everything, some have withstood the test of time and didn’t turn our words into their weapons of choice, but alas, those are few and far between.
Muriel Vieux – June 3rd, 2026 – ©All rights reserved
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