#BlackSpring is here: the uprisings happening in cities nationwide as part of a collective fight for racial justice in all areas of Black lives. As Alicia Garza, special projects director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and co-creator of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, explained to NewsOne, “There is a Black Spring that is emerging where communities that have been under the boot of police terrorism, communities that have been attacked by poverty and unemployment are rising up, coming together and advancing new solutions and new visions and new demands to create a new world where Black peoples’ lives matter.”

As a Black woman who was raised by a single mother, I understand how racial justice is connected to the labor movement—along with other movements, such as reproductive justice, that fall under the human rights “umbrella.” But for some people, mostly conservatives, the multiplicity of efforts becomes a bridge too far. (Remember the criticism advocates in Ferguson received from Republican leaders for setting up voter registration tables near Michael Brown’s memorial?) Part of the reason for this pushback is because critics don’t see people of color, Black women in particular, as whole persons. They still see us as props whose lives and stories are not acknowledged at best, and exploited at worst. We’ve watched this happen not only in the mainstream labor movements, but also in conversations around the uprisings, as if it weren’t our DNA staining the concrete in our communities.

And such public criticism can, in turn, foster doubt among leaders unfamiliar with this tactic. This was apparent at a recent Black workers’ event in New York City, where a labor union advocate asked: Are we changing the subject too quickly when we try to engage folks on economic concerns without first tackling police brutality and racial profiling?