i am sympathetic to folks that say *the* reason why the black panther party of self defense was a threat was because of the breakfast program. i am also sympathetic to the folks that say that is too reductive, that they were more than a breakfast progrum.*

i think it’s in the middle: the BPP was a threat because they practiced care. and care showed up *as* a breakfast program, yes, but also as health clinics, as armed defense, as reading groups. care work as political organizing. care as the grounds for its emergence. care.

one reason i’ve focused on care in my own work for years now is because black feminist thought informs my own, and black queer critique. and because care is often considered the antithesis of “serious things” and i’m just fundamentally against this.

if care is soft or frilly or whatever, we need to have a preferential option for softness.

(i’ve been exploring softness in my own work because of these ideas too. “be soft with me number 2,” for example.)

care is something white supremacist capitalist patriarchy cannot give nor withhold, even when it tries to privatize care as an industry that is primarily about making money and exploiting workers. care is not private property, it only exists when it is shared.

care is the antithesis and alternative to white supremacy, to riff on cedric robinson, because it must be. but it is so much more. it exceeds the logic of reactive response to practices of violence. it precedes the violence and political economy of extraction and exploitation.

care, even if soft, ain’t easy. it takes courage. and conviction. and clarity. (i’m a former preacher, so the alliteration is a throwback lol.)

you only have care when you share it. and sharing it is difficult precisely because the political economy of racial capitalism wants us to privatize and hoard what we consider it to be.

care. let it flower and bloom. selah.