The director of a national Black LGBTQ+ organization criticized “white mediocrity” while discussing his hopes for the Black community during Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Dr. David Johns — executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, an organization advocating for Black LGBTQ+ civil rights — made his comment during the Wednesday morning opening plenary session of Creating Change, an annual activist organizing and training conference organized by the National LGBTQ Task Force.

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During the plenary — which focused on insights from Black LGBTQ+ voices who have advocated for liberationist cultural change — Johns was asked about what he has done to help inspire and develop Black leaders. He responded, “I have accepted the responsibility of doing this work publicly, and I struggle with what it means to invite people who love me into the crossfire.”

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He then said that he began painting his fingernails when he worked as a third-grade teacher, and said he had a “student who had been assigned male at birth who wanted to paint his nails, and then talked himself out of it because he didn’t want to be bullied.”

“And so I said to him, ‘Well, you do it. I’ll do it too. And if somebody gives you s**t, send them my way,'” Johns said. “So I’ve decided to keep that same energy, and I think that that’s really important for us in the face of fascist, totalitarian, and white mediocre people.”

He then explained that he no longer uses the phrase “white supremacy” “because that’s actually not what it is.” White mediocrity, he said, has often been unfairly promoted in society despite some of its beneficiaries claiming to believe in a meritocracy, a social system in which power is supposedly given to people based solely on their ability.

“When white mediocre people come for [Black people], they come for us in mobs — they never come for us alone,” he added. “And so it’s important for us to know that there’s strength in community… that when people in legislature [with Black politicians] would try [to harass those Black politicians], that there were people who had their back.”

“One of the challenges that we often have is that we don’t have trampolines when [white mediocre people] come for us. When they scalp us,” he continued, “it’s usually the end for us.”

“[What] I hope we are able to do over the next four years, as we’re working on surviving and transforming, is to create spaces so that we could not just fall [after being attacked by white mediocre people] but bounce further forward than where we were when they came for us in the first place,” he said.

Johns’ comments came soon after Trump signed an executive order ending all federal government policies and programs promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. His order also signaled that private businesses and organizations could be investigated over their diversity policies, The New York Times reported. His order contradicted “the idea that a more diverse, inclusive workforce would better serve the American people,” NPR wrote.

Trump also revoked executive orders from former presidents, including one from former President Bill Clinton requiring federal agencies to address environmental justice for poorer and non-white communities and another from former President Lyndon B. Johnson requiring government contractors to adopt non-discriminatory workplace practices.

Trump has said that he considers these inclusive policies, meant to combat racism, “illegal” and “immoral.” He has also claimed that anti-racist educational materials teach children to be racist.

Earlier in Creating Change’s plenary session, Johns noted that the number of Black leaders of national LGBTQ+ organizations has increased over recent years. The leaders of the National LGBTQ+ Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and The Trevor Project are all Black.

“When I started in this role six years ago,” Johns said, “I was one of a few Black queer leaders who got invited into national table meetings. Now there are enough of us to have a cookout, and people know it.”

Johns also said that Black leaders have always been rising in the world, since the beginning of time, since humans originated in Africa.

“We are the original influencers,” he said. “There would not be anything if it were not for us… Too often we are dealing with the complications of whiteness, ways in which white mediocrity gets in the way… Those are the conditions that we’ve always had to fight through in order to take up space.”

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