When Hope Wears a Beard & Post Online
Bold truth. Soft gratitude. Loud applause.
We’re living in a time that feels like a plot twist with no resolution. The headlines read like dystopian fiction: an administration that defies logic, untreated trauma bubbling post-pandemic, senseless killings, school shootings that steal breath and innocence, and a climate that’s clapping back with fury.
Inflation is dancing with despair, and over 500,000 Black women have been shoved into unemployment lines many by companies that once pledged allegiance to DEI but quietly ghosted the movement.
And yet, in the middle of this chaos, something beautiful happened.
Kyle Cronk, a white man from Olympia, Washington, posted something online that made me pause.
Not scroll.
Not skim.
Pause.
His words weren’t performative.
They were piercing.
He said, “Shoutout to Black women just because.”
And just like that, over 300 people chimed in.
Because when someone outside your experience sees you not as a trend, not as a quota, but as a human, it hits different.
Mr. Cronk didn’t just post. He showed up.
As a strategist who helps leaders break toxic loops with people-first performance, he gave us a sneak peek of what allyship looks like when it’s not dressed in corporate jargon.
It was raw.
It was real.
It was revolutionary.
To every Black woman feeling like a shadow in the workplace, in society, in the algorithm Kyle Cronk reminded us: someone sees you.
And not just anyone. Someone who didn’t have to.
That’s the kind of leadership that doesn’t need a title.
It needs a mic.
So thank you, Mr. Cronk.
For the post.
For the pause.
For the proof that empathy isn’t color-coded.
You gave us a moment.
And in this era, moments like that are everything.
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