Let It Rot:
On the Art of Black Detachment and the Implosion of White Mediocrity
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.” - Octavia E. Butler
“We were minding our business.” - Every Black person, everywhere
I. We Were Minding Our Business
It’s a familiar scene. The internet erupts over the latest news cycle, Frump fumbles through courtrooms like a bloated specter of white supremacy on trial, Musky crumbles under the weight of his own unchecked ego and poor decision-making, and yet... we were minding our business.
Seriously. We were planting tomatoes, prepping for the Juneteenth celebration, launching cooperatives, or simply resting our brilliant, tired bodies.
And yet, the world keeps trying to drag us back into its mess. “Did you see what Musky posted?” “Can you believe Frump said that?”
Yes, we can. And frankly, we’re unbothered.
Because here’s the truth: Black folks have mastered the art of watching empires collapse without reaching for the broom. We know a house of cards when we see one. And we’ve stopped volunteering to hold the foundation.
II. White Mediocrity Is a Hell of a Drug
We need to talk about what passes for greatness when whiteness writes the criteria.
Musky is hailed as a genius for buying platforms and breaking them. Frump became President by weaponizing bigotry with a business résumé that wouldn’t pass a background check at most co-ops. And through it all, the world spins on the myth that these men are visionaries.
But vision without accountability isn’t leadership, it’s simply narcissism with a PR team.
And now, the cracks are showing.
Musky’s attempts to reinvent X (formerly Twitter) are a case study in how not to build community. Frump’s legal troubles are a slow-motion collapse of an empire built on grift. And somehow, the same media that once praised them now documents their demise like it's TMZ for tyrants.
III. The Spectacle vs. The Spirit
Here’s where the plot thickens: we’re expected to care. To watch. To comment. To be engaged.
But we’re doing something far more subversive. We’re redirecting our energy.
Instead of doom-scrolling, we’re co-creating joy. Organizing mutual aid. Holding healing circles. Taking naps that our ancestors didn’t get to take.
Our refusal to participate in the spectacle is not ignorance, it’s strategy. It’s spiritual hygiene. It’s knowing the difference between what's urgent and what's bait.
IV. We Are Not Your Help Desk
Let’s be clear: Black folks have historically been cast as the moral conscience, the emotional support, the mules of the movement.
White folks have long leaned on our brilliance to clean up their messes; in the streets, in the classroom, in the boardroom, even in their personal epiphanies.
But this moment? This mess? This implosion?
We’re not coming.
We have nothing to teach Musky about community stewardship. Nothing left to explain to Frump loyalists about fascism. Nothing more to give to systems that only take.
V. Let It Rot (And Let’s Build Something Better)
Let the empire fall. Let the grifters expose themselves. Let the worship of white male mediocrity die its overdue death.
We are not obligated to fix it. We are not called to mourn it.
We are tasked with imagining beyond it.
While they implode, we build:
Cooperatives rooted in care.
Healing practices grounded in ancestral wisdom.
Economies based on reciprocity, not extraction.
This is not detachment out of apathy, it’s a sacred reallocation of attention. A refusal to water what no longer grows.
VI. Stay Focused, Stay Free
To our Black readers: Don’t get distracted by the noise. Your rest is resistance. Your boundaries are blessed. Your creativity is needed now more than ever.
To our non-Black readers: If this made you uncomfortable, good. Sit with it. Don’t look to us for the next steps, This is your work now.
To all: Collapse is a portal. What we choose to carry through matters.
Let it rot. We’ll be over here, tending to soil, seeding futures, singing in the rubble
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Loved! Yes yes yes