You know what you know

The room

By this point in the day I was tired, and the tape shows it — restarts, logistics, somebody’s keys. Then this, in one go.

I said I’m exhausted of having to explain myself and defend myself. And then I turned it outwards and spoke to everyone who has experienced racism and been gaslit about it — told it wasn’t what it was, asked for proof of their own life. You don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. You know what you know. Someone else’s approval is not going to change the fact that what happened to you happened.

That is the whole reason this surface exists, said in 2021, long before it did. For a long stretch the only account of me being written was somebody else’s, and I declined to let it stand alone. A page like this is one of the ways I decline.

I said it twice in one breath — you know what you know, and you know that you know — the way you say a thing you need to hear yourself. I needed to.