This post was originally featured on And Another Thing…by myself Loud Mouth Brown Girl, on May 7th, 2022, It has been added here to show you all what I am doing outside of Loud Mouth Brown Girl, and for posterity because WEOC is awesome!
Anything That Binds The Faces, Bodies, And Mouths of Black People Is A Hate Group…To White People
The death of George Floyd, hereby referred to as Sir George, galvanized people across the globe.
Allison Gaines is one half of the original team that organized a group of writers from around the world and built a network that started out with 2 writers and grew into 130 writers of various races from around the globe.
That network is worth more than half a million dollars, because of how far our reach is.
Yeah, WEOC — Writers and Editors of Color — is important. It’s the first group of writers that includes writers from around the world, who work exclusively through digital means and happen to be of a variety of races, creeds, nationalities, religions, and spiritualities. We are the most diverse group of united writers in the world.
And you are God damned right, that I am extremely proud, to be a part of this group.
From Savannah Worley to Arturo Dominguez we have an astounding amount of writing talent, that encompasses more than five hundred years of familial history and community-based inspiration.
Some of us write about mental health, and some of us write about racism and politics, but each of us has one goal alone in mind: Supporting Writers And Editors Of Color.
When one of the original founders left the group shortly after I did, I was really angry, because I knew that the relationship between them and the rest of us was toxic and controlling, but returning to the group of WEOC was like coming home again.
Even when I left the official and private group chat, the writers supported my writing, shared my stories, and encouraged me to keep going. WEOC gave me a digital safe space to call home, and the interactions I have are nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Let Me Tell You About Some Of Our Writers
Johnny Silvercloud and I often disagree, on a variety of topics, but he is one of my absolute favorite writers and editors. He is ridiculously talented and unfailingly honest in sharing his opinion, even when others don’t agree with him, he is utterly respectful in his replies to people, and he always tries to reply in a timely manner.
Egberto Willies always has room on his platform for Writers and Editors of Color and is incredibly well-informed. He’s interviewed everyone from me to AOC, and he’s walked in the oldest halls in the country of America while sharing his journey with the world.
Hal H. Harris is infectious, passionate, beyond talented, and unfailingly kind. He’s a great speaker and an even better moderator, and he always makes sure that when we gather to share our voices, everyone can have a fair, honest, and open discussion without fear or shame. He is constantly making room for others.
Savannah Worley is brave. Unashamed, she is powerful, wise, and filled with the kind of kindness I missed out on growing up. She’s the kind of woman I want to cuddle up on the couch with while we watch bad reality television shows and sip whiskey while smoking big fat joints.
Allison Gaines is absolutely fearless. There is nothing more Allison loves to do than take down white supremacy. She is completely unafraid of white supremacy in any of its disgusting and awful forms, and she revels in the destruction of the patriarchy that tried too many times, to take her life. Like me, she is raw and uncompromising.
Obinna Morton is curious, she is constantly discovering new layers to her inner power and celebrating those discoveries through her writing. She is almost always surprised when people show her love and compliments, but she absolutely doesn’t deserve to be. She’s one of the kindest and most generous of spirit people I’ve ever met.
Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) is fucking hilarious. More so than she deserves to be and I say that only because I’m jealous that she’s so funny so easily, but a lot of her humor comes from the struggle and challenges that come with being a human on this planet.
KSHernandez is power incarnate, and Nada Chehade is the woman I want to be when I grow up even though we’re the same age. (She once ran away to London just to smoke a cigarette, she’s a movie superhero in the making.) Arturo Dominguez is a white supremacist’s worst nightmare.
There are over a hundred more people that I can name, all of whom are kind, wonderful, loving, supportive, inspiring, challenging, and friendly.
Each of the people of WEOC has worked their asses off over the last year providing hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of free content for you to consume, and while you absolutely don’t have to agree with everything we say, you sure as fuck don’t get to call us a hate group because we call you out on your shit.
This is the belief that the owner and operator of a website called GeorgeFloyd.Com want you to believe. The owner, Suzane (we’re not sure that’s how she spells her name), is pissed off because one of the WEOC writers disagreed with how she was running the George Floyd dot com website, specifically because this site is being run by, you guessed it…a white woman.
I’m So Fucking Tired Ya’ll.
From Shaun “I’m white but I’ll scream I’m Blackity Black Black until y’all stop giving me free money,” Kingston to Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug who is still making bank off of pretending to be Black while gaslighting everyone who disagrees with them.
White people are consistently and constantly either pretending to be Black or taking advantage in other ways that often end up with Black folk being the bad guy.
Calling WEOC a hate group is a designated weapon, designed to ensure that her 8,281 followers have a place to direct their anger, rage, hurt, and pain.
I’m not going to say everyone who follows that account is evil, but what I am going to say is that when we rush to support white people who are pointing the finger and the blame at Black folk, we need to start asking questions the first time, second time, and third time. And every time after that.
I don’t know who this woman is and I don’t give a flying fuck who she is, what I care about is the platform that she is building on the literal bones and spirit of George Floyd.
I remember when I was in Anonymous, all you had to do was have “Anonymous_____” in your Twitter profile and overnight you became a success.
Does anyone remember Cassandra Fairbanks? Yeah, we used to be friends years ago before she realized she could monetize her platform and turned herself into a right-wing conservative conspiracy nut who will do anything to get a dime. We met on the Anonymous IRC channel.
The problem with weaponized platforms is that they often get people killed. Aaron Swartz was a prolific hacker with a penchant for doing good wherever he was able. By all accounts, he was kind, loving, and friendly. But he killed himself and the world lost his voice forever.
This matters because we lost George Floyd’s voice, we’ve lost the voices of hundreds of thousands of Black and BIPOC voices, because of weaponized platforms designed to destroy their lives, most especially women.
Women in particular face more trauma from online bullying and abuse than anyone in the world. And when you use the words “Hate Group,” to describe a group of anyone, you upend their lives.
The moment that the words “hate group,” fell on Twitter in regards to W.E.O.C. Editors, the FBI, and a dozen more alphabet organizations started focusing on the words we use on our platforms. For the average person, this wouldn’t be a big deal. We as citizens of the internet and the universe are used to having every word we dissected on every single platform we’re attached to.
What we’re not used to, however, is being called a hate group, because it’s the easiest way to gaslight your weaponized audience into believing you are the victim when in reality you’re the abuser.
One of the reasons that groups like WEOC Editors are so hated, is because of how close we are. We connect through our various social media platforms at least three or four times a week when we’re able. We talk about problems we have in the internet universe, and we share our thoughts and ideas about the world.
The reason that we’re considered “dangerous” is that there are so many of us, 130 to be exact, and constantly and consistently growing, and because of how dedicated we are to our craft, and our group. So if you’re going to come after us with your measly eight thousand followers while we have at our disposal we have more than a hundred thousand followers, you’re going to fail, miserably.
Our followers are smart, brilliant, and know how to think for themselves. And they know what they see, without being gaslit to believe something that isn’t true.
We aren’t afraid of white women who use the names of Black and BIPOC victims to make money. We aren’t afraid of whiteness at all, that’s why we are who we are, that’s why we write what we write, and that’s why we stand up to supremacy and hatred because we’re writers. It’s our job to be the historians of the world.
In a thousand years, you’ll be another white woman who tried to fight against Black folk using the pain and suffering of Black folk, the world will have forgotten your name, while they study our work in the finest universities in all the land.
Providing the world doesn’t explode from global warming. So go ahead, come after us. It’ll be fun watching you burn.
Using George Floyd or the death of any Black or BIPOC person to make money is the absolutely most disgusting thing you can do, but what more can you expect from people who don’t know how to do anything BUT how to exploit the world’s most innocent?
Fuck you and your stupid website. You’re going to fail, and I’m going to make sure that we all have Prossecco and whiskey as we watch you burn.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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