Policing Our Own Light: When We Become Colonizers in Shared Spaces

In response to Teyana Taylor at the Academy Awards

By Dr. Ibis Fro

There is a particular violence that does not always arrive with chains, laws, or whips. Sometimes, it arrives dressed as critique, as respectability, as “just saying.” And too often, it comes from within our own communities, disguised as concern or correction. When Teyana Taylor stepped onto one of the world’s most surveilled stages, the Academy Awards, she did what so many of our ancestors were punished for doing: she showed up fully, boldly, and unapologetically. Her presence was not simply about fashion; it was about visibility, agency, and the right to exist without shrinking. Yet what followed revealed something deeper than disagreement over style or taste. It exposed how quickly we discipline each other when someone refuses to be handled, physically, socially, or symbolically. That reaction tells us more about conditioning than it does about the person being criticized.

Let us name this clearly and without hesitation. When a man puts his hands on a woman in a public space without consent, it is not harmless, playful, or insignificant. It is a violation rooted in normalized gendered violence, a pattern so embedded that many have been taught not to recognize it as harm. When Teyana Taylor spoke up immediately and unapologetically, she disrupted that normalization in real time. She refused to absorb discomfort, refused to perform politeness, and refused to make herself smaller to protect someone else’s behavior. That response was not excessive or dramatic; it was necessary. It was clarity in a space that too often demands silence. It was, fundamentally, an act of sovereignty.

And yet, what followed was painfully familiar. The violation itself was minimized, while her response was magnified and scrutinized. We have seen this pattern repeatedly: a boundary is crossed, the room goes quiet, and when the woman speaks, she becomes the subject of critique. Questions shift away from the act and toward her tone, her delivery, her timing. This is how conditioning operates, by teaching us to normalize the violation and problematize the refusal. We begin to ask why she did not tolerate what should never have happened in the first place. In doing so, we reinforce the very systems we claim to challenge.

We must confront the deeper truth that underlies this reaction. The plantation did not end; it internalized, embedding itself in how we monitor and regulate one another. We have been conditioned not only to endure harm but to enforce that endurance across our own communities. Dignity becomes labeled as “too much,” boundaries become reframed as “attitude,” and self-defense becomes interpreted as disruption. When someone breaks that pattern, when they speak in real time without apology, it unsettles the system because it disrupts the conditioning. Instead of expanding that disruption, many rush to contain it. That containment is not protection; it is replication of control.

What Teyana Taylor embodied was not just joy, but joy with boundaries. Joy without safety is not freedom; it is performance under pressure. Joy that requires silence in the face of harm is not joy at all; it is compliance dressed as celebration. When she spoke, she did not diminish the moments she protected the space and created space for others. She made it clear that visibility without dignity is not liberation. Her response asserted that joy and protection must coexist. That assertion is what transforms presence into power. If she suffered in silence, the Academy may not have felt the need to address their "Extreme Upset."

Yet beyond the Academy's leadership and their acknowledgment of the inappropriate touching, several in our community peddle respectability politics and have surfaced in this moment to do what they have always done, which is to demand tolerance of harm in exchange for conditional acceptance. These members of our community teach us to endure quietly, even when uncomfortable, even when violated, even when disrespected. So, when a woman refuses that script publicly and unapologetically, it unsettles those still invested in that bargain. The discomfort is not about her behavior; it is about her refusal to comply. Sovereignty rejects the idea that silence is the price of belonging. It insists that dignity is non-negotiable. And that insistence is what shifts the ground beneath us.

We must also examine the role of silence in these moments. Too many will witness a boundary being crossed and say nothing, only to speak later in critique of the response. Silence in the moment of harm is not neutrality; it is participation in the conditions that allow harm to continue. Accountability delayed becomes complicity. Instead of asking why she spoke, we must ask why others did not. Why is courage so often isolated, while silence is collective? That question demands an answer we cannot avoid.

Speaking up for herself and for others is not an isolated act. It is a model, a blueprint, a standard that can and should be multiplied across spaces. Instead of asking each other to shrink into molds of oppression and suppression, we must normalize boundary-setting in real time. We must support those who speak rather than scrutinize them. We must reject cultures that demand silence for comfort. Every time one of us refuses to normalize harm, the standard shifts for all of us. Every time we criticize that refusal, we reinforce the old system.

Teyana Taylor did not just show up; she demonstrated what it means to exist fully. She showed that joy and dignity are inseparable, that boundaries are not optional, and that silence is not a requirement for belonging. The real question is not whether we approved of her response. The real question is why we are more comfortable with women being touched than with women saying no. That discomfort reveals where the work remains. And it calls us to decide which side of that work we will stand on.

Let us be clear at this moment. We do not need more internal overseers or defenders of discomfort. We need consistent courage, clarity that is unapologetic, and actions that are multiplied across every space we occupy. Let joy be loud and let it also be protected. Let boundaries be firm and let them be respected. Let sovereignty be visible and let it be repeated until it becomes the norm. And when one of us refuses harm, we must not question her; we must stand with her.