Opinionated Introvert

"the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma" - Patrick Star

[moonhedgegarden]

hoodoo practitioner

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

New Research Finds CIA Used Black Americans as Drugs Experiment Guinea Pigs

A new study exposes a hitherto wholly unknown dimension of MKULTRA; Black Americans were disproportionately targeted by the CIA.

A study at the University of Ottawa sheds significant new light on an underexplored component of MK Ultra, people of color, overwhelmingly Black Americans, were disproportionately targeted by the CIA.

[thebeesystemandmemes]

[thebeesystemandmemes]

[opinionated-introvert]

I Woke Up this Morning with Tears in My Eyes and a Name on My Lips: A Review of No Justice, No Peace: LA 1992

I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes and a name on my lips. Eulia May Love. The tears were from a familiar mourning that is a constant part of my existence, but the tears were also from shame, even anger. Why didn’t I know her name?

Last night, I went to the California African American Museum for the debut of the new exhibits but there was one in particular I really wanted to see. “No Justice, No Peace: LA 1992” by the prolific Tyree Boyd-Pates.

 I was born in Los Angeles in 1993 so it is often surreal to witness and imagine a world so unknown to me at the time it actually transpired. I was clueless to the pain in my city of origin until I was old to enough to understand. Like a lot of people, I heard the words “riots” and “looting” before I ever heard “systemic racism,” “housing discrimination” or “police brutality.” It takes work, digging, and intense unlearning of a history filtered through white supremacy to really get to the core of what happened and led up to the uprising in 1992. This exhibition does that, but it did more than I think I was ready for.

 Having done a lot of that unlearning growing up hearing my dad, a South LA native, tell me what it was really like to be black and alive at that time – I didn’t expect to have such a visceral reaction to the exhibit. As soon as I stepped inside, I was greeted by a concise summary of factors that led to the uprising. Then, I walked by a familiar map of LA County, complete with Compton and Long Beach – my other homes. I smiled at the cities I’ve grown to love, but that was the last time I smiled the entire time. From then it was the actual encoded words banning black folks from housing. Stories of a police force brutalizing black and brown communities. A history of the Zoot Suit Rebellion. A war on drugs. A political and media campaign to perpetually dehumanize an oppressed people.

 Eulia May Love.

 I stopped and stared at her photo and then I was struck by the words. She was shot eight times by the Los Angeles police over a 69-dollar gas bill that she needed to pay 22 dollars on. A crime against humanity. If I had time, I’d go in about the inherent evils of capitalism, the criminalization of poverty, a system set up where bureaucrats call violent state agents to protect a privatized and monetized utility, the dehumanization of a mother trying to feed her kids, the impossible choice between dignity and life, the unbearable violence of anti-blackness and misogynoir. I felt a wave of it all staring at this photo and caption,  one that was not blown up on the wall like the photo of Rodney King, it’s a little in the cut but impactful none the same. I immediately felt heavy and forced my legs to keep walking through the exhibit. I moved passed the wall with the infamous line, “Can we all just get along?” A tagline of a man overwhelmed by his own trauma. I’ll get back to that sentiment later.

 I shuffled more quickly through the rest of the exhibit because my heart was racing. Screens surrounded me with the police beating on a loop, scenes of black rage and destruction on a loop,  and an actual police cruiser in the middle of the floor.  The last time I felt this way in an exhibit was in the “America I Am” gallery when I was staring at a displayed KKK uniform with spots of blood still stained on the white sheet. My mind was screaming, “You’re not safe here.” I have to be honest in that I didn’t feel good about the police car being centered (literally and figuratively), and what that meant to me. I didn’t feel good about the white faces consuming the King beating on a loop and what that meant to me. I retreated to the wall with the name LATASHA HARLINS in huge white letters but it wasn’t much of a retreat. Again, I stared at her face, said her name, and mourned. Was there a way to center this loss without centering the murderous institution with fresh blood on its hands? I don’t know but it doesn’t make it any easier to take in.

 This is where I get back to the question Rodney King posed, “Can we all just get along?” There was a question about “unity” at the end of the exhibit and again, it made my stomach tie up in knots. A question of unity without an explicit call for reparations is incomplete at best, too accommodating of white violence at worst. Yet, that doesn’t take away from the meaning of the exhibition as a whole.

 What I commend about this exhibition is the truth telling, the attention to structural discrimination, the recognition of black girls and women as victims, the holistic history and clear attention to detail, the color and lighting, and finally – the obvious respect and care taken with the heavy subject matter.

 At the same time, I yearned for more names, a wall of them even. More first hand stories of living under the terroristic regime of the LAPD. I wanted a shield, a door, a warning, an escape, or some kind of acknowledgement that the videos could be traumatizing that seeing the car was traumatizing. Personally, it flashed me back to the night my friends and I were surrounded by 15 police cars and 79 officers in riot gear on a night of celebration. Seeing that car was not fun. I wanted the question at the end to center a response to anti-blackness, to call it what it is, to not insinuate that there is some way to unify black folks and police. Maybe a question on how we can imagine a world without them? Maybe the car could have been replaced with a memorial or shrine to all the lives snuffed out. I guess, more than anything, I wanted more of an indictment of a system that still exists.

 The exhibition accomplished much and confirmed even more for me. It is inspiring critical thought and telling a mostly unappreciated and unrecognized history. For that it is worthy of a ton of praise.

 As a black woman, an Angelino, a proud feminist, and a future attorney – I can’t help but wish that sometimes I could walk through something like this more emotionally detached or that I could say that I’ll be able to enter the room with the screens and the car again (I can’t for my own self care) . The feelings I had walking through are not unique to me, but a shared response to terror.

 I sat down with my friend Gabby and we talked out our reactions and both of us teared up trying to articulate how it hit us. If anything, I gained a new reason to live on in black struggle. For the black girls, women and femmes I’ll fight to protect in D.C., this gave me more fire and I will continue to SAY YOUR NAME. And for the system of policing  I will continue to fight to be dismantled, your days are numbered.  What a testament to just how impactful No Justice, No Peace: LA 1992 really was. Yes, I recommend you visit the museum and witness it for yourself.

 What I witnessed last night is why I woke up this morning with tears in my eyes and a name on my lips.

[opinionated-introvert]

Eff a "Revenge" Body!

In the spirit of vulnerability and transparency, I'm going to tell you something that I've been insecure about for years. I have believed, (and still struggle to reject) the idea that I would be happier, more confident, worth more and objectively more desirable to men if I didn't have a flat butt. I'm a BLACK woman with literally "becky" as my name and was then triply cursed with a lack of "booty" so synonymous with black features. Deep down, I have felt that this "flaw" was the key to my discontent. Trust me, when I found out what a brazilian butt lift was and how much it cost, I immediately started saving up and imagining how much my life would improve after the surgery. It felt like everyone knew that this was my unfortunate lot in life.

Everyone from random men to my ex, and actual friends and family have made comments that I'll never forget. "Well maybe if you didn't stand like that, it wouldn't look so flat" "Just squats and the gym girl" (as if genetics and generally how my body is built don't factor in, don't let the plastic surgery fool you..aint no one building a big butt overnight) "it's small but cute I guess" or just knowing and disappointed looks. All of this to say, even when I was working out and consciously squatting, I was fixated on this one part of me and felt horribly insecure and worthless because of it. I avoided pants with no pockets, rompers, pencil skirts, body-con anything, and much, much more to try to hide what I HATED about my body. So much effort into hating myself. I think about the lengths I went to and shudder thinking that I thought that I was living my life.

My breakup last year and decision to truly face myself was a true turning point in my life. I was society's idea of "thin," had a boyfriend, was in law school, finished a successful internship and yet, I had never been so depressed, so unhappy with myself, and so miserable. I had everything but peace of mind. Everything but self worth. Everything but the ability to look in the mirror and appreciate every part of me. I couldn't say the words "I am enough." I believed wholeheartedly that there was something very wrong with me. Through a painful but rewarding process and self-love journey (that I just celebrated the 1 year anniversary of), I've discovered a community of folks who are rejecting the culture that helped breed my and our insecurities.

Body Positivity saved me. Fat activism is precious work and I am forever grateful to the women and femmes who do that work as they fight to exist within our fatphobic society. I went through the process of spotting and countering the lies we are fed every second, minute, hour, day of our lives from media, family, and other external sources. I experienced the steps toward recovery from unhealthy ideas of self and my relationships to food and the judgments of other people. It's absolutely a PROCESS that I'm still in the middle of but believe me, it has changed EVERYTHING for me. I have found joy and confidence within myself that I never thought was possible without someone else validating me. It really has come from within.

That is why, I must call out what I see as violent, dangerous, and a negligent perpetuation of the most toxic ideas of diet/weight loss culture. This time it's in the form of Khloe Kardashian, her brand, and the new show and book that has come from it. Her entire message is, "change your self, especially your body so that you will be validated by your exes and folks that shamed you in the past, but mostly so you can finally be happy and free." or in other words, the problem isn't SOCIETY, isn't FATPHOBIA, isn't LOW SELF WORTH, isn't IMPOSSIBLE STANDARDS OF PERFECTION, nor is it our lack of time to HEAL, NOPE...it's you. You need to change. There's something wrong with you, that's why you've been rejected. That's why you are unhappy with yourself. SO let me make an entire show affirming that belief and peddling this false idea that this will solve all your problems.

This is not helpful in the slightest.

It's lies wrapped up in capitalistic gain for the Kardashian brand and the diet industry, and ultimately it's not meant to support healthy self-love but foster more and more self hate. It has to end.

There is no such thing as an ideal body. The mindset that you have to change your self for love, acceptance, and worthiness will leave you empty every time. Healing from rejection and trauma are real challenges in a society that tells us our bodies are a problem to be fixed. But, let me tell you that your body was never the problem and so it can't possibly be the solution. When Khloe says that her haters are her motivators, she explicitly leaves out herself. Self hate only breeds more self hate. What her show and what she won't tell you is that conforming to someone's else's idea of perfection or desirable won't stop that voice inside you from screaming "YOU'RE NOT ENOUGH." Rejecting this entire premise that 'the way your body looks determines our worth' can silence that voice.

I don't know Khloe or how she feels when she looks in the mirror or what thoughts go through her head when she's alone with just herself, but something tells me there are parts of her that are still dissatisfied, parts that can't be healed by another surgery or trip to the gym. Within each and every one of us is the capacity to love ourselves but it takes intense, and often painful inner work because we are going against what we've been taught for our entire lives.

I'll say it now and I'll say it a million times more until shows celebrate our authentic selves and stop selling self hate disguised as empowerment. There's nothing wrong with you. Who needs a "revenge body" when loving yourself is the biggest middle finger to this toxic, fatphobic and diet obsessed society? You are enough and you don't have to make anyone believe that but yourself.

[opinionated-introvert]

Tell YOUR story on the #movementbe app! The app for Love, Truth and Justice! Join the Movement and BE the Change! http://thndr.me/2w5UAQ

[opinionated-introvert]

We Deserve More Than A ‘Lemonade’ Love

When life gives you lemons, throw those lemons out…and find what you really need. Even if it’s yourself.

I want to celebrate love, I do. I want to celebrate love that is healthy and not based on co-dependency.

I want to celebrate love that recognizes the inherent worth of both partners. I want to celebrate love that doesn’t make one feel worthless.

I want to celebrate love that is mutual and doesn’t require self-denial. I want to celebrate love that also equals consistent respect and ACTION.

Ultimately, I want to celebrate love that is actually LOVE, and not what we’ve been taught to accept as love.

The first half of Beyonce’s new album gave me life. The second half made my heart hurt.

There were lines that struck me to the core. Lines that I vehemently disagree with.

“Nothing real can be threatened. With every tear came redemption. Mytorturer became my remedy”

My heart hurt because these lines and the messages society sends about love have a common and damaging theme.

There is something wrong with you. Something so wrong, that you must prove to another human being that you’re worth keeping, that the relationship is worth saving. That love is this kind of pain. That you can, and should seek healing in the person who broke you.

I reject that.

We can be our own remedy. We can seek healing in ourselves. in God.

I’ll take it a step further and say that in most cases, we should.

Why?

Because we’re worth it. We deserve it. There’s nothing wrong with us.

We don’t have to endure being devalued. When someone hurts us deeply, forgiveness does not have to mean allowing them to stay in our life.

We have become accustomed to only celebrating one representation of love. The kind that “conquers all.” The kind that means fixing the pieces of a broken heart with the person who broke it in the first place.

What if we celebrated, showed, and valued….letting go. A narrative of recognizing that you can love someone but love yourself more... enough to leave when your worth is not realized. To not give millions of chances based on feelings, but say enough is enough when you have been disrespected.

What if we didn’t celebrate staying together no matter how high the emotional and personal costs.

Costs that black women historically have paid for the most in our sweat, blood and tears.

There is another way. We can give ourselves the love we so selflessly give away for it not to be adequately returned. We can accept the unconditional love of a God that came that we may have life, more abundantly.

There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s a line on “Lemonade” where Beyoncé laments over whether she’d rather be “jealous or crazy.”

I wonder who told her that’s all she was. That her feelings weren’t valid. That because the only love she’s been modeled has caused pain, that there isn’t better for her. Who told her that men will be men. That we’re the “crazy” (ableist, sexist and untrue btw) ones for expecting and demanding more.

I’m writing this to remind us all that there is another way. We can bask in and celebrate a love that doesn’t require feeling worthless.

There’s nothing wrong with you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We can recognize this in ourselves. Celebrate it. Even when it means letting go of those who have proven they can’t protect that truth.

Lemonade ends with a montage of couples, smiling…laughing..sharing sweet kisses.

What if we celebrated people achieving their dreams and life purposes? What if that image of Beyoncé strolling in the yellow dress triumphant was also shown as an alternative ending? Equally as valid, if not more so?

What if there were images of black women triumphant, free of toxic relationships, and free to explore love separate from the betrayal of broken men?

I want so much to celebrate that reality.

There’s nothing wrong with you. Regardless of what you’ve been taught. No matter what the actions of the person you love made you feel. There’s nothing wrong with you.

It is time to free ourselves of the dominant narratives that can limit our full potential. A new way of celebrating love. You can be fulfilled, happy, whole…and alone. You can set your standards for how people treat you HIGH at the very beginning and work to let go of anyone who fails to meet you there. You can do this because there’s nothing wrong with you. Society is lying when it sends the message that singleness is somehow inferior to being in a relationship. Both can be healthy, community-filled, exercises of strong self-realization, if we let it. In a world where we’re told the opposite. We can be so much more.

I celebrate you, in your healing and wholeness. I will continue to fight for alternative messages to the dominant ones that refuse to celebrate our worth outside of another flawed human being.

There’s nothing wrong with you.

There’s definitely nothing wrong with letting go of and finding liberation from “love” that makes us feel that there is.

https://nothingwrongwithyou.org/

[opinionated-introvert]

Chicago, Oh Chicago.

My family is planning a summer trip for the first week of August and it looks like St. Louis will be the move. We'll also be driving to Chicago to sightsee and watch a broadway musical. I can't really describe the feeling of intense ambivalence I have toward visiting the windy city but it's palpable. It almost feels wrong to enjoy the fruits of city that is going through so much turmoil in its marginalized areas. 82 shot over the Fourth of July weekend and law enforcement is still blaming the proliferation of guns. That's definitely part of the issue, but like most responses to street crime....it doesn't get deep enough. 

I watched a short documentary on the hip hop coming out of Chicago and they delved into the lives of the rappers there. I saw issues that have little to do with the tools being used to commit terrible acts of violence (ie lax gun laws). I saw youth that desperately need guidance. I saw an entire system of institutions that have failed them from family and school to different law enforcement agencies. Families torn apart by the criminal justice system.. Children growing up with incarcerated parents forced to find their self worth in the misguided youth around them. Running to gangs and sets for respect and validation that was never instilled in them before.

I see Lil’ Durk skipping school for weeks because the school system is failing him, allowing him to slip through the cracks. Thankfully, he found an outlet in music to keep him from the consequences of street life and participating in the underground economy.

I see law enforcement constantly patrolling but doing nothing to mend the relationship between them and the community. “Police, judges, lawyers hate us”. That should never be the prevailing sentiments of a community you’re supposed to be serving, but what else is new? 

Prevention and intervention with less emphasis on suppression is what real change looks like. I'm looking at you law enforcement and politicians pushing punitive policies that exacerbate the crime problem. You can't have holistic solutions without a two-fold strategy that involves truly listening to the voices of those affected and combining that with academic research. 

So, yes. It does need to be harder to get guns in the hood but reactionary solutions that don't recognize the institutions that are broken will not help anyone. 

It’s depressing to see my people obviously hurting

[opinionated-introvert]

An Extreme Case of “Nice Guy” Syndrome

I’ve had numerous conversations with my friends that eventually get into the topic of relationships in college. When I’m talking to other women, we often lament about the clear difference in approach with guys from LA and guys from the East Coast. In general, there is usually a consensus that most guys are influenced by society’s standards of what is desirable and use that in their pursuit of women. When that isn’t as fruitful, they stop only going for the “bad light skin from the valley” and find someone that they truly vibe with. When I talk to other men, I hear a different story completely. I cannot tell you how many times I hear that women “play games.” I hear that women will have great guys around them but will ignore them for “thugs” or guys that aren’t doing anything with their lives. Why wouldn’t women want “nice,” “college educated” and moderately attractive men to date? Why do they put them in the friend zone? Three years of undergrad and this conversation has come up every year. I don’t have the time or patience to go into how sexist the idea of the “friend zone” is but I will talk about why this whole conversation deeply disturbs me. 

It’s the entitlement. Why do men feel so entitled to a woman’s affection?

Before I go further, I can already hear the chorus of, “Well, women have entitlement in their conversations too! Why do they think men have to pursue them??!” First, I will concede that there is a little entitlement in every person’s idea of relationships because we should have a healthy sense of self-worth that lets us believe that we deserve to be loved and pursued. The problem here is that women rarely get to the level of entitlement where it can be labeled a syndrome. When a woman is rejected, and trust I know from experience, after going through a short period of hating that guy for saying no..the tables usually turn on ourselves and we acknowledge that there must be something that made us incompatible and the guy has a right to choose who he wants to be with. Period. Yet, with some men and their rejection, the response is misogynistic at best and disturbing at worst. The woman loses all agency and is crazy for not choosing this nice guy. There couldn’t possibly be an issue with chemistry or compatibility. Nope. She just puts nice guys in the “friend zone” and goes for jerks. The entitlement is disgusting and we need to call it out as such every time we hear it. Instead, we normalize it. Put it in magazines with tips on how to win over women. We make tv-shows called “FriendZone” and try to help people win the affection that they believe is obligated to be theirs based on their niceness. 

We have to start seeing this idea for the thinly veiled sexist ideology that it is. Why? Because it can get extreme and things like this happen. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/24/santa-barbara-shooting_n_5384839.html

http://heavy.com/news/2014/05/elliot-rodger-drive-by-murder-california-video-youtube/

There has been a mass shooting at the hands of a very misogynistic and entitled 22 year old man. Although there may be talk of extreme narcissism and other mental illness. We cannot afford to protect our patriarchal culture anymore. The ideas he had about women and what they must do for him did not come from thin air nor was it unheard of. These are inevitable consequences of an entrenched belief that women owe men their time, energy, bodies, affection etc. It was clear from his rhetoric that he had 100% bought into the idea that women were obligated to like him despite his deep-seated issues (Evident from his youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/user/ElliotRodger , so creepy)  

So, what’s the point? As discussion commences about this situation, we can talk about mental illness and we can talk about gun control. Let’s not forget about the sexist culture we live in that cultivates and normalizes Elliot’s beliefs as legitimate. How am I supposed to tell the difference between someone who genuinely hates women and their right to choose and the guy who is just hurt that he got rejected? If the ideas they spew are similar, we have a big problem. 

[opinionated-introvert]

Today I found out that the USC Halloween shooter was given 40 years to life for his crime. My first reaction was, "omg, that's a long time. his life is over." The emotion I felt was distant and dulled because I was already mentally filing it away as another sad story of a young black male throwing his life away over gang related mess. Then, I saw the picture. Then, I watched the video.

What I saw was a young man see his life flash in front of his eyes. I saw a young man see the world come crashing down around him. It was a death sentence. A fatal decision 2 Halloweens ago would now be the reason that he may never see freedom again. 

It was too much for me to take. 40 years to life, for someone who had no criminal record, and didn't kill anyone is outrageous. It is unfair, draconian, unnecessary, and just plain wrong. 

The same system that let Zimmerman walk free and told a young white boy that he can't go to prison because he's too rich and spoiled, just struck again. The same system that told a man that raped his 3-year-old daughter that he didn't deserve prison, struck again. 

What pains me the most is the amount of people who have this "lock em' up and throw the key mentality." Who honestly believe that it is better to harp on this young man for the terrible thing he did and leave the criminal justice system uncriticized. Not me.

This is not about whether we should prosecute him for what he did. Of course we should. This is about why we are prosecuting him in this way as if this prison sentence does anything to solve our problems in the long run. 40 years to life doesn't question the validity of harsh gang enhancements. The same gang enhancements that can add up to 10 years on a sentence (violent or non-violent). 40 years to life doesn't question our overcrowded, cruel and unusual prisons. 40 years to life DEFINITELY doesn't question the racial disparity in sentencing. 

My goal is to bring nuance to our discussion of crime, gang violence, and who we deem worthy of our concern. Not every black person railroaded by the criminal justice system is going to be innocent, but that doesn't mean we dull our sense of empathy. 

Accepting his sentence as just gives a concept of retribution to the victims, but it doesn't help us as a society. It doesn't.

I choose leniency. I choose looking at this from all sides. I choose rehabilitation. I choose compassion and mercy. I choose fairness and true justice.

This was NOT justice. Justice doesn't exist in a system that gives black and Latino defendants harsher sentences than white defendants who have the same or similar crimes. 

What this young man did was wrong and there are consequences, but the moment we shut off all sense of compassion and empathy in favor of tough prison sentences, we lose a little piece of our humanity. Deep down, we must know this isn't fair.