INVOICE FOR EMOTIONAL LABOR: Selected Works by Christopher Johnson

Accidental Racism is what happens when an individual behaves, speaks or acts in a derogatory or hostile way that expresses unconscious biases overlooked or accepted by societal norms that could offend stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups...

This work, “Invoice for Emotional Labor”, is a “calling in.” It is me (the author) utilizing the redesigned tools of the master, the only language I know, the only army I have, to dismantle the master’s house. It’s me calling you into the process of excavating such painful things to remember, write, perform and calling you into the tough conversation of race in America. It is a sharing of my experiences as a Black Man surviving the oppressive systemic, institutional and personal biases while naming the White Supremacist nature of America. It is putting a finger directly on a tumor and calling it cancer. If cancer could speak and you asked it to describe a tumor, it is not going to tell you it’s cancer. It will say it’s ugly, it will say it kills parents and children, it will say it impairs the quality of life, but it will not proudly declare to it’s close friends and family or to the world “It’s ME!” But the victims of cancer will say it.