In 2013, I published a conversation I had with a white friend about the Five Stages of Unlearning Racism

In 2015, I wrote An Open Letter to My White Friends. At the time, I was trying—earnestly, patiently—to explain what it felt like to move through the world as a Black woman surrounded mostly by white people who considered themselves kind, progressive, and safe.

In 2020, I published a podcast episode titled Doing Business While Black about the racism I experience as a Black woman in business. The catalyst for the episode was reflecting on the previous year and identifying a maddening pattern– multiple white clients who consistently asked for more services and support than they were willing to pay for.

It’s 2026 now and I guess I’m overdue for another racial sign post.

I don’t write these because I think it will change anyone. Clearly things are so much worse than the last time I broached this subject publicly. 


I’m writing because patterns deserve to be named.
I write to process what happened so I can move on.
I write to leave sign posts that I can point to for next time (because I know there will be one) so I don’t have to repeat myself.

It Came Out of Nowhere

If you’ve ever worked with dogs—or spent time around good trainers who work with aggression cases—many owner will say this after after a bite:

“It came out of nowhere.”

Except it never does.

A skilled trainer can replay the footage and point out the signs:

• whale eye
• lip licking
• turning away
• stiffness
• attempts to disengage

The dog was communicating discomfort the entire time. The growl was a gift. A warning. An opportunity to change course.

Punish the growl, and you don’t get a better dog. You get a dog that skips straight to the bite.

This matters, because the same dynamic plays out constantly when Black people name harm.

The Growl Was the Boundary

Recently, I wrapped up a long-term client relationship that had become unsustainable. The ending was already planned because I’m pivoting away from done-for-you automation services. But what I hoped would be a smooth handoff to a new service provider turned into a spiral of racial microaggressions and white tears.

The initial issue was mundane: volume, scope, and boundaries. Forty-three support requests in nineteen days. Contractor expectations drifting into employee-level demands.

My job is building technical solutions for clients but those clients have various levels of technical ability and in this case, the tech ability was low. I had mentioned several times over a period of months that with all the systems we’ve built over the years, it was time to get someone technical on the team who could do the day to day management and troubleshooting that even the most well-built systems require. But they didn’t listen.

I did what professionals do. I named the issue. I asked to talk. I provided data. I attempted to recalibrate.

Those were the early warning signs.

Looking back, I realized that this was part of a consistent pattern that included:

• Declining long-term solutions, then creating emergencies
• Texting my personal phone for urgent help months after officially offboarding
• Asking for discounts when I took a vacation while never acknowledging when the team went above and beyond

I shared my podcast episode in an attempt to make them aware of these patterns.

Instead of addressing the boundary, the response became emotional.

First there was avoidance: “We’ll just switch providers early.”

Then apologies arrived wrapped in distress. Guilt took center stage. Clarification was demanded. Reassurance was requested. The focus shifted—quickly and repeatedly—from impact to feelings. They declared that they were ‘too emotional’ to have a conversation and could only communicate via email.

That shift was the punishment.

Once the growl was met with emotional fallout, I lost the ability to communicate safely. Not because I was wrong—but because continuing to speak now required managing someone else’s emotional state on top of my own.

Instead of doing yet more emotional labor, I let them know that I was prioritizing focusing on the work for the remainder of our contract. And despite the drama, I did some of the best work of my career. I’m especially proud that every thing we built is immaculately documented so that the next team won’t have to waste time trying to reengineer the systems.

White Tears Aren’t Accountability

Here’s the part that still seems hard for many white people to understand:

Feeling bad is not the same thing as taking responsibility.

Emotional collapse, self-flagellation, long apology emails, offers of reviews or referrals—none of these undo harm if they still require the harmed person to:

• explain more
• reassure you
• continue engaging
• absorb your discomfort

That’s not repair. That’s labor.

And when a Black woman is expected to provide that labor while simultaneously being harmed, the dynamic is racialized whether anyone intended it or not.

Imagine hitting someone with your car and then crying to them about how awful you feel and asking them if you’re still cool without actually moving your car off of them.

Discomfort is Not Danger

Around the same time this client exchange was unfolding, I encountered a literal hanging in a public park I frequent. A Black figure made of garbage bags, suspended from a tree branch. A real, physical reminder that white supremacy is not theoretical, metaphorical, or confined to history books.

When I alerted a white friend who lives nearby—someone I meet up with multiple times a week for dog playdates—she casually mentioned she’d seen it two weeks earlier and done nothing.

When I asked her about it in person, the look on her face was pure terror. Not terror at what the hanging represented. Terror at being called out. Terror at having to think about her whiteness.

She shared that she didn’t get a clear look at the hanging and realize how bad it was until I sent a photo–and then she wrote a letter to the apartment management. A letter. To a place she could have walked to in under 3 minutes.

She never said anything about any of this because she was afraid to bring it up, and was not sure what to say. So she said nothing and let me believe that she was fine with seeing what amounts to a death threat without giving me so much as a heads up, when she knows I frequent that park often.

Meanwhile, I posted about it on LinkedIn and someone responded by suggesting maybe it was just a sparring dummy.

She was so committed to avoiding the reality of racism that she needed to believe it couldn’t be what it was. Even as we’re living through a Nazi revival.

She would rather spend hours out of her day investigating the intent of strangers than believe and support me, even though we’ve known each other for 30 years.

Something clicked for me in those exchanges:

Many white people experience discomfort as if it were danger.

So when a Black person names harm, the reaction isn’t curiosity or accountability—it’s panic. Terror. A desperate need to restore the self-image of being “one of the good ones.”

Meanwhile, Black people are navigating actual danger. As I type this, modern day slave catchers are swarming Minneapolis, rounding up everyone Black and brown and locking them up. A test case that will surely spread.

These two realities are not symmetrical.

It’s Just Another Tuesday

What made this particular situation stand out wasn’t its severity. It was its ordinariness.

This wasn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me.

It wasn’t the most blatant. 
It wasn’t new.

It was simply the most recent example of a familiar pattern:

• boundaries named
• feelings centered
• accountability avoided
• labor reassigned to the harmed party

The same month I was managing the client fallout and processing the hanging, I had a consultation call with another Black woman—someone I’ve been in business circles with since 2020. Her client (a white woman) had a CTO role they wanted to discuss.

I opened the scope document before our call. The role required skills and responsibilities companies typically pay $3,000-$5,000/month for.

Their budget? $500/month.

I thought it was a typo. It wasn’t.

Because she was another Black woman, I spent far longer than I normally would explaining why her client’s expectations were unrealistic, offering context and guidance.

At the end of the call, she said: “Well thanks for the chat, this was probably $1,000 worth of consulting.”

That’s when I realized I’d played myself. If she’d been white—or a stranger—I would have ended the call after two minutes. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt because we share identity.

And she was fine extracting free labor anyway.

Black people aren’t immune to white supremacy. We grew up in this soup too.
When Black folks say “all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk,” this is what we mean.

All of these scenarios happend within a two month period and I haven’t even shared everything. Now multiply that by 54.5 years.

This is the shit I deal with every day.

When people ask why Black folks seem “tired,” “guarded,” or “done explaining,” this is why.

Trigger Stacking for Humans

In working to resolve our first dog’s reactivity towards other dogs, I learned about trigger stacking—how small stressors build up over time until the dog’s threshold is lowered. One thing alone might be manageable. But stack enough triggers, and suddenly the dog reacts to something that normally wouldn’t bother them.

Trainers understand this implicitly. They account for it. They manage the environment to prevent overload.

I wonder:

Is 400 years of slavery, segregation, Jim Crow, redlining, wage theft, daily microaggressions, and now the return of modern slave catchers enough trigger stacking for Black people to receive the same understanding we extend to dogs?

Because no matter how “nicely” I’ve named harm, there never seems to be a perfect way to hold someone accountable that doesn’t result in gaslighting, defensiveness, or emotional collapse.

The growl is always punished.

Conditional Friendship

One of the hardest truths I’ve had to accept as an adult is this:

Most white “friendships” are conditional.

“Friendship” with white people (with very few exceptions) is conditional upon them never having to experience a moment of racial discomfort. The moment racial discomfort enters the room, many of those relationships fracture. Not because anyone is evil, but because the expectation of comfort was never interrogated.

When I was in high school, my gym teacher—a lesbian who mentored me, took me on trips, gave me space to be myself—was someone my mom called “the first real white friend she’d ever had.” My mom was almost 40 when she said that.

I remember being shocked.

Now I understand completely.

Are there white people I love? Of course. White people I’m friendly with and enjoy spending time with? Absolutely.

But I’m also keenly aware that 99% of them could turn on me at any moment if I create too much racial discomfort. Not because they’re villains, but because the friendship was always conditional on not causing them discomfort.

So when it happens, I’m not surprised. I just deal with it and move on.

In 2015, I still believed those friendships could be saved with the right words.

In 2026, I understand that many of these ‘friendships’ will stay at the shallow end of the pool, for my own mental wellness—and some connections won’t survive the moment of accountability—and that’s not a failure on my part.

Changed Behavior Is the Only Apology That Matters

I don’t write posts like this to shame individuals or litigate private relationships. I write them to create signposts—so I don’t have to keep repeating myself in moments of harm.

If you are white and reading this, here is what actually helps:

Do not:

• Ask for reassurance after harm is named
• Require continued access as proof of forgiveness
• Confuse emotional expression with accountability
• Investigate “intent” when someone tells you something is racist
• Make yourself the victim
• Compare Black people to each other
• Demand that the harmed person make you feel better about the harm you caused

⠀Do:

• Believe Black people the first time
• Do the work without being coached by the people most impacted
• Sit with your discomfort privately—or process it with other white people
• Understand that discomfort ≠ danger
• Remember that changed behavior is the only apology that matters
• Build a support system of anti-racist white people so you’re not extracting emotional labor from Black folks
• Accept that some relationships may not survive—and that’s consequence, not cruelty

Some relationships will end. Some doors will close. Some trust will not be restored.

That is not cruelty.

That is consequence.

And if that feels uncomfortable—good. Sit with that.

Discomfort is not danger.

White People Don’t Listen to Black Women

After I wrapped up work for my client, and sent off my final offboarding email, I wrote a lengthy reply with many of the points I’ve shared here. It took hours. It would have been so much easier to wash my hands of the whole thing, but despite everything, I valued the relationship and the work they do and I hoped this moment of accountability could be an opportunity for growth and repair.

At the end of the letter I warned them that they would be tempted to reply and the chances of them being able to do so without causing more harm were slim to none. I shared the story of my friend who stepped in poop and went to the grass to wipe it off— only to step in more poop and make it worse.

“If you reply to this email, you’re just stepping in more poop. You stepped in it and it’s not the end of the world, but you probably don’t have the skills to engage without further harm until you do some work.”

They replied anyway, ostensibly to follow up with a referral I had asked for, but then they couldn’t help also adding:

• A detailed list of their allyship behaviors
• Justification for their previous feedback about my contract (as if the reason they couldn’t respect boundaries was because I didn’t spell out 10 pages of contingencies)
• Expressions of shame and regret
• A complete misrepresentation of what I’d actually said
• Comparing me unfavorably to another Black women service provider that I referred them to because I know how hard it is to find skilled help.

But if white people could listen to Black women, Kamala Harris would be president and we wouldn’t be living through the fourth Reich.

Every day I see posts from dog trainers trying to keep people from buying dog breeds based on looks, knowing they will end up with a working breed with needs they probably can’t fulfill and everyone will be miserable.

My friend who has only raised chihuahuas would have a better chance of raising a Belgian Malinois puppy than most white people have of even recognizing racial microaggressions, much less preventing them.

But they just won’t fucking listen.

This is white fragility in action.

This is what I mean when I say: they will always center themselves.

Some white people will read this and come away thinking, Kronda hates white people, but I just hate white narcissism. (Note: we’re done calling it white supremacy because their behavior is anything but).

The real miracle is that I don’t hate white people, even though white people are more and more open about hating us.

I’m just exhausted and I want them to do better.

If this post resonates with you:

For Black readers: You’re not imagining it. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not asking for too much. I see you. 💜

For white readers doing the work: Share this with other white people who need it. Don’t ask the Black people in your life to explain it to you. And remember—discomfort is not danger.

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