Allyship & Leadership in times of duress

It has been more than a year - over 365 days, over 525,600 minutes, an immeasurable amount of seconds for an average person.

Some of these days were years; many of these years were challenges. Without the strength of my network, the sincerity of my friends, and the support of my community, those days may as well have been centuries.

There is much I can't write of my last job - and not much that's worth saying. Instead, I will make some observations, and it is an exercise best left to the reader to decide what meaning they hold for them.

If you plaster platitudes across your offices, if you wrap yourselves in our flags, if you borrow our language and offer lip service to our history - this holds no meaning. If you're the calm port on the calm day, if you're our shelter in the sun, if you're our friend in a sea of friends - this means nothing.

If - when - you kowtow to perceived pressure, if - when - you throw us out along with the rising tides, if...when, you abandon us - it means much. Many of you have already ended your careers unwilling and disgraced - cruelty isn't selective. You've left in shame, you've left in droves, and sometimes you've been fired out of the same position three months in a row, supplicant after supplicant.

There are poems about this, there are textbooks about this, there are deep-seated knowings among those that sleep without shelter, those who live many lives. They're coming for you, too; you are not them. Your fear was an opportunity, and your words have always been empty.

Minneapolis has shown leadership; you have not.