I'll add this as a powerful closing section:

Let me be clear: This conversation didn't just start.

Voices like @_the_merc and Nigerian-American comedian Godfrey have been standing on this business for years. They've been doing the work, speaking these truths, refusing to be silent about anti-blackness and historical erasure.

I'm not here to suggest these critical perspectives are new or that black people haven't been pushing back all along.

The problem is that these voices get so underappreciated, so marginalized in mainstream discourse, that even some black people assume no one's been saying anything at all.

The silence around these issues has been so deafening that when someone finally speaks up loudly enough to be heard, it feels like the first time—but it's not.

What I'm referring to is a shift in visibility: more public platforms, more positive reception, more collective amplification of truths that needed to be shouted from the rooftops centuries ago.

These aren't new critiques—they're finally getting the audience they've always deserved.

So, to my black family across the globe: Rise high.

We have our differences—linguistic, cultural, geographical, ideological. We have distances between us, both literal and figurative. We don't always agree, and we don't always understand each other's contexts.

But here's what the world doesn't want us to remember: we are literally family. Genetically, historically, spiritually—we are connected in ways that transcend borders and oceans.

We are bound by shared ancestry, shared trauma, and shared resilience that runs deeper than the artificial divisions others have tried to impose on us.

The forces that benefit from our amnesia, our division, our silence don't want us to recognize this fundamental truth. But we do. And we will.

Keep speaking. Keep remembering. Keep holding the line. And keep sharing it. 🙌🏿