Where do I even start?

I don’t even know. I feel very odd about what’s been happening this month. And not the “good” kind of odd, the stereotypical odd that someone uses when they have some sort of negative connotation towards a noun.

This month has felt… heavy. Not in a reflective, honoring-our-ancestors kind of way. Or even recognizing our modern success in a kind of way. Heavy in the way where every time you open your phone, there’s another reminder that progress is always being negotiated in real time. And I think that’s what’s been sitting with me, and probably a lot of other Black people, is that it doesn’t feel random. It feels amplified. I mean, look at the political and economic state of the world right now. Sorry, I love that joke (but Jaden Smith was low-key on to something when he said that).

Can you blame us? Look at how our current federal administration is acting. I can’t speak for how they act locally (not any better), but I can say that at a federal level. We are witnessing what being wealthy and white can do for someone. That’s a nasty combo. We are witnessing how having connections and generational wealth accumulated through capitalism, lobbying, racism, and exploited labor can do for someone. That all you need to be the President of the self-proclaimed “greatest nation on Earth” is to be a conservative fascist white man with money. Not intelligence. Or experience. Or care. Or competence.

And it’s showing in how Black Americans are treated. Because think about the energy we’re supposed to be in right now. Black History Month is supposed to be about remembering, honoring, and learning. It’s supposed to be about excellence, survival, creativity, resistance, joy. It’s supposed to be about us being seen fully. It’s supposed to be about… us.

But this month, the pattern has been interruption after interruption; moments that pull attention away from celebration and back toward defending our humanity again. Joke’s on them, I can multitask, because y’all (white people) are funny for thinking I’m not about to be celebrating being Black and my culture and my people.

The BAFTAs

At the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTAs ceremony), when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage, a racial slur was broadcast. People can debate intention, circumstance, explanation – all of that can be discussed. I mean… It’s a white man being accused of a great act publicly, of course, the media is going to instantly rally to his defense. But impact is what people live with. And intention doesn’t negate impact. Hearing that word in a space meant to celebrate artistic achievement, during a month dedicated to Black history and empowerment, hit differently.

It reminded people that recognition and disrespect can coexist. That while we are allowed to be in these spaces… now, we are still not seen as equal. The BBC had the option to cut this out, as it was not live and had been filmed much earlier. They cut out other parts of the show, including a pro-Palestinian acceptance speech. They saw an opportunity to capitalize on that moment, the man himself, who ticked the slur, even requested it be removed from the broadcast. BAFTA’s editing team was able to edit out all his other tics, but seemingly left out the loudest and most discourse-creating one. It was intentional. We are still seen as either exotic or extra, and most of the time, it’s simultaneous.

The AI Video

Just a few weeks back, there was a video shared by Donald Trump depicting Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, a literal former President and former First Lady of the United States, using imagery that has historically been used to dehumanize Black people. The disrespect would eat at me more than the racism, to be honest. Then it wasn’t even subtle, like we as a collective clocked that all too quick. That wasn’t “ambiguous symbolism.” It tapped directly into a long history of racial caricature. When imagery like that circulates at the highest levels of visibility, it doesn’t just offend; it signals what is still considered permissible in public discourse.

The In Between

And then there are the smaller moments that aren’t small when you live inside them. Comments, jokes, narratives that frame Black people as lazy, unintelligent, aggressive, expendable. Things that are brushed off as “just commentary’ but rely on stereotypes that have never actually left the culture. When politicians like Gavin Newsom literally say he’s “like Black people now” because he got a “low” SAT score. This is coming from their memory. It’s coming from pattern recognition. It’s coming from history repeating itself in slightly updated language.

Manon Leaving KATSEYE

What’s happening with Manon’s temporary departure from KATSEYE is actually alarming me. Like internet trolls and lazy logs actually need to do what they are and log off of the internet. What I have been seeing about Manon (from complete grown adults) is so disheartening. Imagine what she’s thinking right now. I think people honestly just need to swallow the truth, and it’s that you don’t want a Black woman as the face of a majority white girl group. The media was very flabbergasted by the general public’s desire for Manon to be the face of KATSEYE, because, let’s be honest, she very much is and was.

The media couldn’t handle it. I don’t know, I feel like there’s a lot more to this than we as the average American know. And it’s killing me, but I mostly feel like they just wanted to rain down on her success, and this online racist purge is just part two. I might do a separate article for this. Stay tuned.

What Does This Feel Like?

What makes this all feel especially sharp is the timing. Can we, as normal people, use critical thinking for just two seconds. It’s very obvious that this blatant racist surge is happening because it’s Black History Month. But this country has a history of wanting a reaction out of us. Of wanting us to submit. To be quiet. But we refuse. And now they have to resort to disrespect and dehumanization tactics to gnaw at us. In other words, they using pathos. Trying to literally rage bait us into reacting to how you guys are treating us just so that you can then react with aggression back at us, call it justified because of how we “acted,” as a reminder to Black Americans and the rest of the world that they believe Black people are inferior to them, and they are openly racist. They = United States.

When these moments cluster during Black History Month, it creates a strange emotional dissonance. We’re being told to celebrate while simultaneously being reminded why the celebration exists in the first place. It’s like being asked to honor progress while watching evidence that the underlying struggle hasn’t disappeared; it’s just mutated.

This is why Black people keep saying it feels like rage bait. Not because every incident is coordinated, but because the cycle is predictable. This happens regularly; they just wanted to do it more transparently this month to be bigger bigots. Something happens to Black people. Black people react. The reaction gets criticized more than the incident itself. The conversation shifts from harm to tone. And suddenly the focus is not on what happened, but on whether we are “overreacting.” That pattern is exhausting. It makes us question whether the goal is resolution or just reaction.

For a lot of us, especially us younger Black people trying to move forward, build careers, create art, go to school, and live ordinary lives, it creates this constant background noise. We’re trying to focus on growth, on future plans, on healing, on becoming. But there’s always this reminder that our existence can still be reduced, caricatured, dismissed, or debated in public space.

That frustration I’m feeling, we’re feeling. It’s not just anger. It’s fatigue. It’s the emotional labor of witnessing the same themes in new packaging. It’s starting to look a lot like the iPhone’s Tim keeps cooking out. Same thing, different name, maybe even a slight upgrade like a new camera and updated chip. Racism works like that. Most sociological concepts do actually. What we’re seeing is just recognizing patterns that others insist are coincidences. It’s wanting celebration without interruption. In other words, let us have our cookouts in peace… please.

And I think what makes this conversation important, especially for someone like me who’s always talking about voice, identity, and being unapologetically visible, is that silence doesn’t make the pattern disappear. Naming it doesn’t either. So you might as well be vocal about it and let others know the truth. It creates clarity and clashes with ignorance. It says: we can celebrate Black History Month and still acknowledge the present. We can hold joy and accountability at the same time, beloved.

Because Black History Month is not just about the past but also about the conditions we, as Black people, are living in right now. And if those conditions still include public disrespect, structural bias, and normalized stereotypes, then talking about that isn’t negativity; it’s honesty.

And honesty… the feeling that keeps surfacing for me isn’t just anger. It’s resolved. The same energy that we ought to be towards the elite and rich and powerful (but I digress). It’s only so much we Black people can take before we get to work. Tread carefully.

Reflection

This month has been overwhelmingly frustrating and surreal, and I can’t be the only one. Even though all this, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love being Black. I love my people. I love my culture. I love my roots. Even through all the fighting over Manon, I still saw just as many people supporting and defending her, which I love. I saw how we, as Black people, collectively took a break from not caring about white folk to remind them. Remind them that even though we aren’t reacting, we’re noticing. History versus the history makers, and they’re still losing. Because even after 4 centuries of white supremacy, we still haven’t given in. And everyone’s talking about it like it’s a rumor about nonsense that was important to us in middle school. I love the rallying, though. It’s calm, clearly, intentionally is part of what keeps the meaning of Black History Month alive instead of symbolic.

This isn’t about being reactive. It’s about being aware. We’ll have our time… but. Awareness is what turns history into something living instead of something archived.