Dear fellow non-Black people, I promise it’s possible for you to praise Stacey Abrams (and other Black politicians!) without treating her as a symbol or a totem instead of as a person and without acting as if her political activism was done for your benefit.

(more broadly, it’s possible to praise politicians without investing weird emotional energy into them & idolizing & projecting parasocial relationships onto them, but the specific ways it’s done to Black people & especially Black women is uncomfortable & kind of dehumanizing)

Or, as @JayJurden more succinctly explains: https://twitter.com/jayjurden/status/1346690655662333952

also, Black people have always been saying this after every instance of performative self-abasement or ‘Black Women Are Superheroes Who Saved Us All’ or any other way you get weird about treating Black people like actual people, so if you’re only engaging with it from me, reflect

like, not this. extremely not this.

or even more succinctly: https://twitter.com/budrykzack/status/1346652952702967809

Very much not this. https://twitter.com/gretchenwhitmer/status/1346819096160186370

Weird fetishistic idolization with a bonus display of totally not understanding any of the organizing work that Abrams and Brown actually do by also idolizing a Republican who has been actively involved in the voter suppression they’re fighting. Seriously. Not this!