Language is alive and impacts pretty much everything we do. How we talk about things, the labels we use, they matter even when they are messy and ever-changing. I began using BBA and BBIA instead of BIPOC several years ago. Here’s why.

I learned silence early.

As a queer, fat, Black, multiply neurodivergent woman, I learned that my voice was too much. Too loud. Too honest.

Even when I whisper, even when I covered my words in flowers and acquiescence, even sometimes when I was silent I was still too loud.

So I read a book about leadership recently. It was written by a white woman who’s worked for huge companies like Google and Apple. The book is called Radical Candor by Kim Scott and I really enjoyed it.

The premise is basically this: for leaders, there is an axis of caring personally and challenging directly. You want high levels of both to run an effective team.

Let’s break the axis down…