[lilmamabeyellin]

[gonelilbunni]

And people want to act like the lack of black women in media isn’t intentional as fuck lol

[lovableshade]

^^^^^^^^^!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[savagefilm]

Afropessismism argues that its the best argument

A meta critique of the world

What it doesnt see

In its commitment to be the "best" argument

Is that discourse is bullshit

And we use language to allay our fears

Our fears of loneliness, pain, and violence

Can just as easily be covered up by words

as it can by hope

It is a focus on rationalism

That is its downfall

It is for niggas who have read all the great whites

It is for the master interlocutors

It wants to be the best of them all

Why the insecurity?

Why the need to win?

Being a black femme is a discursive position caked in loss

Today I seriously considered becoming a stripper

I went to a local strip club dressed to impress

The regulars, older black men mostly, approached me

Each of them described their desires to me, financial dreams, dreams of power

Their eyes spoke of a fantasy to fuck me

to be recognized by the only figure who could grant them recognition

They knew the power of discourse

And they knew my discursive position

I was a black bitch destined for a pole

I don't mind the idea of stripping

But I'm tired of a lie located in the supremacy of supposedly rational speech

The speech of white supremacy

The speech of black men who collude because they bought into the master narrative

and know where I belong

An afropessimist professor once told me I took up too much space in class

The strip club manager hired me on the spot

Destiny for a black girl with too much presence?

What we say out loud--the words we use

The arguments we make

Are a means of feeling a less insecure in the world

Afropressimism argued one main thing--that blackness is a race of an essential abjection

A strange thing happens--people become secure with that insecurity

It gives people an identity--as the most put upon

It would never serve the discourse to argue that black women are somehow more put upon

But also I would never make that argument because that definition is not what interests me

Its not that kind of empowerment via identity politics I care about

When we can all agree our discourse is the most rational

Most secular

The end all be all of arguments

We can finally agree we wanted to be the master

And I'm just not interested in that

It was the most boring kind of thing to me

Because, for one, it couldn't deal with me,

my body, my presence, and experience

And secondly, where is the fucking creativity

in the face of all things violent

That thing I see black women do

That wake work?

How do we talk about that invisible thing

that cannot be captured by discourse

and doesn't fucking want to be talked about

Because it knows both the violence of being named and the fantasies embedded in claiming a name for oneself?

I no longer want to be a slave to words

but everyone, including the black man, wants me to be

So I can fit into their established hierarchy

Claiming intellectual authority is a means of improving one's position,

though an Afropessimist could never admit it

I don't want my position improved

I want it eviscerated

[mysharona1987]

It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out–and come back for more.

Bela Lugosi  (via ladyinfurs)

He knew

(via tariqah)

[savagefilm]

Sometimes I think about slapping the shit out of my ex

Sometimes I want to slap the shit out of my ex Definitely once but maybe twice I sought to pour my woundedness into unstable black men Each time I got sucked into their reckless energy which I thought was their art But it was also their mania I was attracted to wildness Knowing it was in me too but feeling too guarded to express it I have never been overcome with more anger than when these boys left After taking them to court dates and assuring them of their worthiness They left as haphazardly as they came Stumbling into other beds high They couldn't handle the weight Of a black femme Who could name the violences set against them And told them they could be free if they chose it I never felt more free than the day I shouted in a class at UCI My black male professors couldn't be more surprised that I could name the violence better than they could And that I wasn't afraid to use my tears to do it. They called it wasteful emotion and returned to their privileged texts. When you're a black woman you are battling against all sides, black, white and other You are more attuned to violence And familiar with the blood. These experiences make you a better nurse You tend to the sick, dying, and dead. Then you pour yourself into a sick body Who you know can not hold the weight But you hope and imagine otherwise That bodies can become spaceships and we might leave this hell together But they give up and you are left Again surrounded on all fronts But exponentially more lonely And you want to beat the shit out of corpses And it will do nothing new Because violence bears no fruit And you know it more than anyone.

[savagefilm]

What to do when you are in a discursive war

You sit more still. Wait and listen to the voices around you. The waves of anger, the stifled sobbing. Sweet laughter. Control and submission. Humanity, the tragedy.

You see a little black girl. She tells a younger girl she’s building a spaceship out of a piece of paper. Folds the paper twice. Tears stream down your cheeks. She’s a young magician.

The magic of words. This is a spaceship. Words became powerful once humans reached the consensus that words had currency long before gold or paper money.

Spoken language is one way that humans negotiate values. Hidden between each word are power, interest, and desire.

Hidden in every human interaction spoken and unspoken is a layer of meaning to be read.

I been sitting and reading for 32 years. I have seen and experienced so many kinds of feelings. I have experienced the pull of interests and desires that weren’t mine, and I have pulled others into my own fantasies.

It feels like a game. It feels dangerous alot of the time, necessary at others. Needing to be close to others, to create the right kind of relationships in order to survive. Not wanting to use others. Being used. Using others by some strange consequence of being close to them.

Human relationality is what I think about more than anything. I used to just think of blackness apart from humanity. But being black is simply its own microcosm of humanity.

The hurts I’ve experienced and love I’ve experienced have had their roots in my relationship with black folks. I sense in a physical way the ways that we’re enslaved by dominant discourses. These discourse (stories) force black folks to submit in the way that violent force tends to. I sense this has a long history even before whiteness became such a global power. That if I were an anthropologist I would see this tendency within humanity, that these imbalances of power happen and have happened long before. Violence is essential to human culture. The African cosmologies and folklore tell us much about this.

Someone might fight the discourse of white supremacy with a story such as “Blacks were technologically superior long before whites, just look at the pyramids.” But I cannot help to see the building of the pyramids as an imperial project, a project created by other slaves. To such a person I ask: what forces, desires, and interests drive one to pursue this story? Why must we pursue new imperial stories where blacks are at the head?

Maybe the truth is buried and history/storytelling is a perpetual act of excavation where all we might find are remnants of our own imaginations. We are haunted by the truth, but we can’t quite possess it so we use language to proclaim our authority. The more one can convince others that they “know” the more they can build themselves up as an institution and accrue power. The cycles continues. The ghosts continue to haunt us and remain outside of our grasp. We produce new ghosts, new victims of our competition over “Knowledge”

I sit still because I do not want to be caught in the wave of human emotion still in motion brought about through history. It is like a pendulum of movement whose origins cannot be traced. I am not sure what there is but to make peace with it. Every discourse wants its glory. I saw this when I was an Afropessimist.

I think I am a healer. I think thats what my art is supposed to do and what my interactions are supposed to bring. I try to be still with others. I aim not to be moved. There is already so much internal emotional movement I am always trying to process–like–where did this feeling come from? What does this bit of sadness mean? This piece of anger, why did it arise? This little jealousy? All I can do is ask questions and feel through the answers.

I smoke a lil weed and I get to laughing. I poke fun at my humanity and fallibility, and that of others. Why do we do what we do? I wish there was a way to simply gesture and say there aren’t any answers because our minds and bodies cannot process it. We are small but not insignificant. We are effects and affect. We move and are moved. I just want to minimize the pain of that movement. How do we keep back the hand before it strikes the flesh without striking first?

Its all very complex to me, this human experience, this time with human forces and compulsions. I want to survive and be here but sometimes life is too much and I feel too frail to help anything, the issues are so vast and beyond me. So maybe if I sit still and watch I will somehow grow old and get through not too damaged and whipped by my human family or my own emotional waves or ego.

Words will never be enough. I still wonder and wander, love and recoil. I wanna recoup something within this experience. I am writing to begin to create a language of feeling through and being still.

Ashanti stories often begin with the storyteller saying the following: “We do not really mean, we do not really mean that what we are about to say is true. A story, a story; let it come, let it go.” Thank you to my friends. I learn so much from you about practicing relationality in better ways. Thank you little girl for reminding me of a kind of imagining and creativity that does not require abuse.

[blackfashion]

Email submission by Bijon Faby (@bijon.faby)

“I’m a photographer from South Central LA. I wanted to submit these photos from a photo shoot I conducted of my friends Kumi (@kumibitchwhere ) and Chanell ( @provokita).”

[savagefilm]

[themushr000m]

I’ve never been more perfect✨

[savagefilm]

[radfemeudaimonia-blog]

Ways men opt out of housework and childcare by “helping out”

take on weekly or monthly tasks, and think it’s equal to their wives daily tasks (even when wives also have weekly and monthly tasks)

take on tasks that require very little time or hard labor, like mowing the lawn.

take on a “project” that could be fixed by a professional, and work on it little by little but never really finish

create chores for their children, i.e. delegate rather than doing

do housework only in tandem, i.e. never on their own or without help.

volunteer on their own for some disliked task. For example, cleaning the toilets without asking. unfortunately, this tends to be seen as very loving and exceptional. Often it will be used as an excuse not to do anything else

enthusiastically volunteer to do things often, then conveniently “forget”, “make plans”, or have some sort of weird parameter to get started. When wife or child does it instead, claim they were going to do it, really!

pick a jurisdiction they already enjoy, like “take care of dog” or “the yard”

do something really badly, so that someone else has to do it for them anyway afterwards

“tidy up” a mess they made

pick up or organize clutter, however the often stressful, emotional, and time consuming task of de-cluttering is left undone or for someone else

meticulous keep clean a space that is only theirs, i.e. their study, their garage.

create tasks that aren’t needed, like “organize the toolbox” or “rearrange the bookshelf”

do tasks that require prep work that their wives will do for them (i.e. grilling the food, but not planning, purchasing, seasoning or preparing the sides)

take control of “finances” but do very little, perhaps the taxes. this is also used as a way to control their wives often

use their time with their children to play or dole out discipline/lessons, but very little time on feeding/bathing/dressing or organizing their lives. this is also away men can create a “fun parent/mean parent” dynamic

make lists of what needs to get done, discuss what needs to get done with their wives, act very invested in the housework, take on a “manager” role in the housework, but do very little of it

tell wives that what little is done in the house, by either of them, is “enough” and that he “doesn’t care” what the house looks like (this is a l i e). i.e. doing little and then making an emotional appeal that it’s fine, co-opting the emotional labor his wife does for him, but actually it’s very manipulative

getting involved with children’s after school activities, i.e. being a coach, organizing a concert, etc. often a thing he already enjoys. often does very little of the organizing/plan making. often makes little effort to create time for his wife’s personal interests

pay attention to your fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, boyfriends, husbands actions. you’ll start to see these constantly 

[savagefilm]

Four Women Nina Simone

My skin is black My arms are long My hair is wooly My back is strong Strong enough to take the pain Its been inflicted again and again What do they call me M...

“My skin is brown my manner is tough I'll kill the first mother I see! My life has been rough I'm awfully bitter these days because my parents were slaves What do they call me? My name is Peaches"

[cantcolonizethispussy]

I know this is really dramatic but every time I see videos of future dancing or young thug talking about how he’s from another planet I have to hold back tears and I feel things that I’ve never felt before and I can only describe it as profound happiness, deep sadness, accepting everything and also letting everything go, maybe like floating in a lake in the middle of the night while the moonlight washes over you and losing all sense of time and place but being at peace with that

[feministkutti]

Balika Badhu (1976)

[nowaronthepoor]

It never fails. Every time there is critical resistance, an uprising and continued unrest people get dragged back to compliance (with permits) under the rhetoric of being peaceful or nonviolent. The movement gets dragged out of the street to sit attentively at the feet of the oppressors with...

[strugglingtobeheard]

just so people know, antiblackness is not part of intersectionality. it isn’t intersectional. it is a very specific outlook and way of structuring the world so that Black bodies are always property and anti-human, the people humanity and “civil society” are structured against. antiblackness is...

[jmjafrx]

"…the ways in which she spied on people taking selfies in front of it…"

Kara Walker is a Trickster. (via jmjafrx)

[savagefilm]

current mood