At the start of the New Year, I’ve had trouble getting out of bed. Earlier this week, I slept the day away. It’s hard not to be depressed over the way 2023 has ended. But in the middle of this week, things started turning around. I don’t know if it was me dropping the link to my petition in the right place, or the efforts of some kind, unknown benefactor who spread the word.

WE FINALLY REACHED OVER 100 SUPPORTERS!!!

This is a HUGE deal to me, because it took forever just to get to 5 signatures, then 20 signatures. I have no social media presence anywhere else but Facebook, so my petition isn’t likely to go viral unless YOU, the reader helps make it go viral! I am grateful for what you have done already in signing this petition. However, I want to keep it going. There are over 1,000 members in the private Facebook group whose creator kicked me out and only one kind soul that I know of who signed my petition. It would be a great show of strength and solidarity  if we could get 1,000 signatures. I joke that this isn’t even a grassroots campaign - my lack of a wide social circle or even supportive family members means I have to start way, way down, like from the center of the Earth! You all have surprised me though - and renewed my faith in humanity. You don’t know what I look like or even my real name, but you trust that my story is REAL, and that my pain is REAL. I appreciate that more than you know. When I got kicked out of that "Professional Mom Group”, I already knew that being a jobless Black autistic woman, I was a misfit, an outlier. Yet this group managed to provide a sense of community where a few  highly educated, intelligent and empathetic women encouraged me when I posted about some of the darkest times of my life. I boldly shared some of the most humiliating experiences of my life in that group. I posted about my traumas and things that no person should ever have to go through. It was a safe space. Now, I was kicked out and all my very personal stories are there and I don’t have access to my own posts and the reactions/comments. I still can’t believe someone as educated as this admin could read all my posts and secretly feel so much resentment for me. But you know what? I realize that implicit bias is still very pervasive. Being Black and unemployed, I got too big for my britches. And so, I had to go. She had to finally put me in my place. 

I don’t know if I have it in me to find another online community again after the way I was burned. But I learned my lessons: white supremacy is stronger than reason and empathy when you have power over a large group of people in a Facebook group. You can’t help but get drunk on that power. And remember, this admin freely admitted that her Facebook group is NOT a democracy. That’s chilling. She went to law school to become a lawyer. Espousing authoritarian beliefs is a way of upholding white supremacy and holding on to power and control. Despite being based in a very ethnically diverse area - Silver Spring, the group has no Black moderators as of the time I got kicked out. 

I moved from Silver Spring in the summer of 2022, hoping for greener pastures. I stayed in the group because it was still my community and there was no reason for me to leave. I shared my triumphs - I fought for my family to have a pest-free apartment after we rented one sight unseen and it was crawling with roaches, like something out of Fear Factor. The property manager tried to downplay the issue, but I was not going to agree to living in a roach-infested apartment with raccoon-sized holes in the drywall.

 This was my first battle in Howard County. Next up, I had to battle the school system. My son ( pictured above ), got bullied for the first time in his life - he was stabbed by a white male classmate with a pencil for not knowing the answer to a math problem. The principal denied it was bullying, so I filed a formal complaint which was useless. Perfection is a pillar of white supremacy, so neither the principal nor the superintendent would admit fault. They had the perfect school district. In fact, that principal got an award for "Best Principal” the next year in spite of the school failing to give BOTH my children the education they were entitled to.

I fought like hell to get my son out of that school last year via an administrative transfer. This all started not long after the bullying incident; he was given D’s in Math and Reading and the teachers did so happily, without referring him for an evaluation to see if he qualified for special education. The IEP team at that school also failed to discuss a proper middle school for my autistic daughter; I had gotten word that they referred a white male peer to a highly-ranked middle school while my daughter was left on the back burner. She didn’t get to go to a proper middle school until November 8th - three months into the school year! Her IEP team’s failure to act in good faith towards my daughter is the result of race and gender discrimination and/or retaliation ( for my raising a stink about the bullying episode). Still, I shared my victory of being able to advocate for my daughter to go to a nonpublic school. I didn’t have the money for an advocate or an attorney so I used the power of my words.

I’m sure the white admin resented these stories of triumph that I shared with the group. How dare an unemployed Black woman have this kind of power! At least I had some of the group members cheering me and congratulating me. But yes, in the end, once they realize you are powerful, you are considered a threat. Hence, the silencing.

 I’ve had so many battles to fight and I am exhausted. I did not have a real vacation all of last year and I won’t rest until Facebook does something about this problem. I know I am not the only one. 

As always, thank you for supporting me. I have not asked any of y’all for any monetary donations, because I don’t have that kind of audacity. I am just asking that you share this petition widely in your social circles, on other media platforms, and even in the comments section of relevant Facebook posts. That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s not easy. I don’t want to come across as a spammer or scammer, so every comment I make is tailored to be relevant to the post I’m commenting on.

Anyway, thanks again for lifting me up! Love you all!