Is Facebook Racist?

Written By Pink Flowers

I think Facebook might be racist, y’all — for realz!

Facebook reminds me that what I got to say and the way I got to say it don’t fly with them. I get invited to “boost” every one of my posts. I don’t really give a fuck about boosting shit, but if that shits an option, I wanna think it’s available to me too. So, for the hell of it, I give it a shot. That’s the power of Facebook advertising, I guess. Guess what? They rejected my shit! They told me my shit wasn’t suitable for advertising.

Y’all thinking “Pink, though, your shit is edgy AF!” Sure, I use some frigging harsh language. I’m choosing to write in a voice that reflects my experience as a Crazy Queer Black Radical Atheist. I use a voice in common with world as I see it. It’s certainly familiar enough that most o’ y’all know what the fuck I’m talking about. Whatever, I cleaned my shit up. I took out all the so-called swear words (which, be honest, y’all, most of y’all use those words on a daily basis). Turns out it wasn’t the swear words. Facebook didn’t like my frigging grammar!

Here’s where I gotta call racism, or at least classism. In order to promote my work on Facebook, I gotta adhere to some fucking standard of grammar? Who decided on the standard? A computer. The advertisers? A fucking intern? Facts, y’all. Think of the implications of that shit. That means as an artist, I can’t use a voice that identifies my characters outside of a particular level education and culture. It means I actually have to be intimate (meaning have) that level education and culture (which the average person does not!)

This is from Facebook’s corporate site:

“Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”

Obviously, Facebook could give a shit about the community I might be trying to build. They sure as fuck don’t want me to express myself—not honoring my experience and in a way people I want to reach will immediately identify. I doubt Donald Trump could write an article that Facebook would approve. Donald Trump, however, doesn’t have to write shit. They can just pay to have it edited to reach however many people they want. Not hating on the Don. Being honest.

Is it me, or does anybody else see a problem here?

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

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