I really need you to read this.

At Western University — my alma mater — the first folx who I felt like ever made me feel home in my own culture (and proud) were the Black Womxn who were a part of the Black Students', and African Students' Associations. 

The only people I saw taking up space and being loud, were Black Womxn. 

And the only people I heard calling out the systemic issues within the University infrastructure, speaking about Kimberlé Crenshaw, true intersectionality*, and social justice, were Black Womxn. 

I couldn’t let them teach me everything, so supported by my friend (the Black Womxn who introduced me to all the incredible organizations and humans, and at times out of love and kindness for our friendship took on more labour to support my growth than she needed to), I started doing the work. 

And let me tell you, it was hard. 

I spent a solid two years unpacking the fact that my entire childhood and teenage years I tried so hard to fit into being more “whitewashed” and proudly claiming the racial slur of being a “coconut*.”

I spent another solid two years trying to understand how I, a dark-skinned south asian woman who still faced a lot of injustices due to my melanin, would never understand the Black Experience simply because I wasn’t Black — so I went to panels, I surrounded myself with activists, educators, Black & Indigenous Voices, and didn’t take space that wasn’t meant for me. 

In the beginning, I was often looking for validation from my friend who had helped introduce me to readings and thought-leaders I needed to learn from. In my head, every action was subconsciously filled with the earnest desire “I hope she knows how hard I’m trying.” 

Six years later, our friendship, (for other reasons) drifted away. 

No longer surrounded by the comfort of University, and all by myself in a world of entrepreneurship, everything I had learned stayed with me — but now, if I was going to do this, it could not be for someone else, or even me. It was BEYOND this.

It had to be. 

Because dismantling systems and fighting against this is not about our individual selves or ego. It’s about breaking down painful systems that folx, and especially BIPOC, are struggling to exist in.

But without my friend by my side, it was hard for me to know how to find my own voice in these ideas that felt so convoluted and theoretical. 

And I remember that feeling. The feeling of frustration, of feeling like the language of activism wasn’t accessible to those without a University education, and that no matter how hard I tried, how Marxist theory had anything to do with Black Liberation — I couldn’t even begin to tell you because I didn’t know myself. 

So I took that feeling and decided I was going to do something with it. 

I took the most important lesson I learned from my first year Critical-Thinking Philosophy Professor. 

“Every essay, every argument,” he said, “starts with defining and understanding the very language we are using.” And once we define the words we use, can we then use them to prove, disprove, strengthen, and make sense not only our arguments, but the world around us. 

He’d be proud of me now, I think. 

This is why, and how, I chose to do the advocacy work that I do. 

The work I do here, in these emails, in my online spaces, via these definitions, is to give you the support in the ways I felt alienated in understanding the world of activism at a time when people were only starting to vocally speak out — and goodness knows they weren't doing it in the entrepreneurship spaces. 

And even so, I owe my pride in my culture, my understanding of these theories, the strength of what true advocacy can look like, to Black Womxn. 

My gratitude and acknowledgement of the labour of Black Womxn and the Black Community in my life, is a conscious and blatant one. 

But you don’t need to have a personalized experience to acknowledge that a huge part of the privileges that womxn, queer folx, and POC have today, are because of the Black Communities. 

Their voices, their strength, their activism, their art, their stories and their power has changed the world in ways we can barely comprehend because let's be real — more than half of their stories, if not lives, are completely erased from our histories. 

And instead of thanking them for their voices, their resilience, and their strength, we stay complicit in their murder. 

So these are the ways I do my part. 

I educate, in the capacities I have, to make definitions more accessible as starting points for your learning. I organize with fellow Documentarians of Colour to learn and unlearn what colonial storytelling looks like, and instead, how to decolonize our media (and then translate that to entrepreneurship). And then I learn, and unlearn some more. 

This process never ends. 

It will continue far past my generation, and just as this tiredness is generational, our tiredness will continue to pass on if nothing changes. 

So this is my reminder to you:

One long, heartfelt email every week is not enough when it comes to learning the things our educational system failed to teach us in school. One BIPOC* will not have all the answers and stories for you to do your part, and this is only a fraction of mine. 

So what are you doing? 

| #BlackLivesMatter | 

In Love, Power, and Solidarity,

Jenny Jay

To help in the process of education and advocacy, I’ve decided to start including a Glossary of Terms, to better make these terms and ideas accessible and easier to understand. 

Intersectionality*: In 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term "intersectionality" in a paper as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women. While it is important to note that Crenshaw has since admitted that it is used to extend because the experience of Black Womxn, it is irresponsible to consider yourself an intersectional Feminist if you are not actively being Anti-Racist and dismantling Anti-Blackness. 

Coconut*: A racial slur used to describe a person in a Brown body who is “brown on the outside and white on the inside”. Banana and Oreo are the Asian and Black equivalents. 

BIPOC*: The term BIPOC stands for 'Black, Indigenous, People of Color,' and it is meant to unite all People of Color in the work for liberation, while intentionally acknowledging that not all People of Color face the same levels of injustice.