Thought You Had A Gun

A series of expressions and opinions on police violence, anti-authoritarianism, community, and feminism by a sometimes angry, always pensive Black Queer woman.

[shakeses]

Sandra

I admit to feeling a little unnerved at how so few of the posts I'm seeing have anything to do with the murder of Sandra Bland at the hands of the pigs.

I think a lot of things. I think about how devastated I was when I read the first article, and how I couldn't even bring myself to read or write about her; how quickly I've scrolled past posts about her over the last two days. I think about how this lack of her presence on my internet feed could be construed as not caring enough. In the past this shit has been up to the minute for me. I think about how so many of us are prepared to position this lack of seeing her on their feed as evidence that we don't value Black Women's Lives. I think that for me, the death of yet another Black woman strikes at the very core of what I fear the most for all of us and for me.

I'm running out of words and ideas and slogans and chants to battle the continuous murder and violence against Black and Brown and Indigenous people at the hands of the state. "It's outrageous! I can't believe another..." and so it goes. But it's not outrageous. We'd be burning shit down and taking shit over if this was outrageous. We'd be holding quarters and neighborhoods and grocery stores and intersections, we'd be building from the ground up and truly fighting from a sense of love and of outrage.

And yes, we can believe it. We believe it because it has happened so frequently since the beginning of time that we no longer really register it as a problem we can solve (requiring action); rather it's just another in a long line of things we already know and are resigned to. A temporary flare up in a miasma of violence that we can't seem to see our way through.

I can't stomach another march or a petition. I didn't know what to say to JL today - the soon to be sixth grader who has come so far in this city despite everything everyone has tried to throw at him. JL, who was so happy to see me and yet asked me, in the hyper-fast way he speaks when he's over-stimulated, "Did you hear, did you hear about, about the girl. She got killed. The cops ehhhhh, got her, she was in jail." I nodded, furrowed my brow, asked if he was okay. I didn't tell him I've been devastated. He said yeah, he was fine, and deftly changed the subject, because that's what we do. We change the subject and hope that by blocking off the imagination of her death or his death or their beatings, that we can keep it from happening to us.

‪#‎Black‬

[shakeses]

Keep Reading, Keep Fighting

I think everyone should read the essay "I, Racist" by John Metta (link below).  I'm seriously thinking about starting some type of online group/ clearinghouse for all the white folks I know and who you/they know to get educated, for the purposes of understanding racism in america succinctly and profoundly, beyond the bullet points of american history that we all cling to like so few life boats in the tumultuous sea called Race Relations in america. I'm also currently taking my time re-reading “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.  If you don't already know, she's a brilliant author, essayist, cultural-analyst.  This novel moves easily from "story about a life" to "deep analysis about race and class across cultures" without you even knowing it.  After I read the essay "I, Racist" posted below, I picked up where I left off in Chapter 21 of Americanah - not on purpose.  It just happened to be where I was in the novel and the article was over.  The blog entry by protagonist Ifemelu compliments John Metta's essay wonderfully.   #booksruleeverythingaroundme #literacyisthegift Excerpt from the novel Americanah (pgs 273-375): "To My Fellow Non-American Blacks: In America, You Are Black, Baby Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I’m Jamaican or I’m Ghanaian. America doesn’t care. So what if you weren’t “black” in your country? You’re in America now. We all have our moments of initiation into the Society of Former Negroes. Mine was in a class in undergrad when I was asked to give the black perspective, only I had no idea what that was. So I just made something up. And admit it–you say “I’m not black” only because you know black is at the bottom of America’s race ladder. And you want none of that. Don’t deny now. What if being black had all the privileges of being white? Would you still say “Don’t call me black, I’m from Trinidad”? I didn’t think so. So you’re black, baby. And here’s the deal with becoming black: You must show that you are offended when such words as “watermelon” or “tar baby” are used in jokes, even if you don’t know what the hell is being talked about–and since you are a Non-American Black, the chances are that you won’t know. (In undergrad a white classmate asks if I like watermelon, I say yes, and another classmate says, Oh my God that is so racist, and I’m confused. “Wait, how?”) You must nod back when a black person nods at you in a heavily white area. It is called the black nod. It is a way for the black people to say “You are not alone, I am here too.” In describing black women you admire, always use the word “STRONG” because that is what black women are supposed to be in America. If you are a woman, please do not speak your mind as you are used to doing in your country. Because in America, strong-minded black women are SCARY. And if you are a man, be hyper-mellow, never get so excited, or somebody will worry that you’re about to pull a gun. When you watch television and hear that a “racist slur” was used, you must immediately become offended. Even though you are thinking “But why won’t they tell me exactly what was said?” Even though you would like to be able to decide for yourself how offended to be, or whether to be offended at all, you must nevertheless be very offended. "When a crime is reported, pray that it was not committed by a black person, and if it turns out to have been committed by a black person, stay well away from the crime area for weeks, or you might be stopped for fitting the profile. If a black cashier gives poor service to the non black person in front of you, compliment that person’s shoes or something, to make up for the bad service, because you’re just as guilty for the cashier’s crimes. If you are in an Ivy League college and a Young Republican tells you that you got in only because of Affirmative Action, do not whip out your perfect grades from high school. Instead, gently point out that the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are white women. If you go to eat in a restaurant, please tip generously. Otherwise the next black person who comes in will get awful service, because waiters groan when they get a black table. You see, black people have a gene that makes them not tip, so please overpower that gene. If you’re telling a non-black person about something racist that happened to you, make sure you are not bitter. Don’t complain. Be forgiving. If possible, make it funny. Most of all, do not be angry. Black people are not supposed to be angry about racism. Otherwise you get no sympathy. This applies only for white liberals, by the way. Don’t even bother telling a white conservative about anything racist that happened to you. Because the conservative will tell you that you are the real racist and your mouth will hang open in confusion." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-metta/i-racist_b_7770652.html

[shakeses]

American History Negative

I've been reading a number of threads I shouldn't, many frequented by Republican supporters, a few Liberal babies, one or two pro-Black-Straight-Pride threads (good night!) and you know what I re-realize? American education around american history is fucking atrocious. These are some of the things that we all learned in school that are ridiculous:

Racism is when people of one race don't like another race. FALSE. That is the definition of discrimination. Racism is an intricately linked system of social, physical, emotional and financial oppression designed by the most privileged members of the dominant race in order to uphold their own dominance while simultaneously subjugating all others. In our country, racism and white supremacy are interchangeable, as the current system of governance and capitalism were created explicitly to uphold genocide, slavery and race-based discrimination which was codified into law and thus is racist.

There's racism in other countries too. TRUE. However one would be hard pressed to find institutionalized racism against people white or light-skinned people across the globe. Discrimination? Certainly. Institutionalized racism? I haven't seen it.

Other non-white people can be racist. MURKY. While it's true that non-white peoples can hate on each other in this country it's important to note that the root and stem of racism begins in white supremacy so while yes, it's possible for say a Brown person to treat a Black person in a racist way, and may have individual advantages or power over said person, neither of these people hold institutional power as part of a collective group of people in power.

The civil rights movement happened in the 50's and 60's. FALSE. It happened when the first African slaves and Indigenous peoples rebelled against white supremacy and it has been happening ever since. It neither stopped nor started in the middle of the 20th century.

Europeans brought homosexuality to African people. FALSE. There is SO MUCH EVIDENCE AGAINST THIS RIDICULOUS LINE OF THOUGHT that I'm not even going to write about it.

Homosexuality is destroying the Black family. FALSE. That distinction belongs to slavery, prison, racism and capitalism.

The Revolutionary War was basically a fight against the tyrannical English crown. FALSE. Rich colonizers didn't want to give up slavery and they didn't want to pay taxes to the crown. So they went to war.

The Civil War was over slavery. The North wanted to abolish it and the South didn't. Southerners are naturally more racist than Northerners. FALSE. All the way around. Slavery was an issue, but so were control over textiles, borders and industry. The South didn't want to give up free labor, the North wanted access to their labor pool. Abolition on behalf of the Northerners was a strategic, not moral decision. For 100+ years after the civil war, non-white people from all over the ethnic spectrum were denied housing, job and education throughout the South, North, East and West.

The Civil War ended slavery. FALSE. See: 13th Amendment; prison industrial complex.

The Civil Rights Act gave everybody equal rights. FALSE. See: the united states of america.

Native Americans just slowly died off. FALSE. Indigenous people were killed, kidnapped, assimilated and/or rounded up onto reservations. They are still here among us, throughout the Western Hemisphere. This notion of the "disappearing Indian" serves to continue erasing Indigenous people and their history from the american consciousness.

There's so much more!

‪#‎thereisnoexcuseforstupid‬

[shakeses]

Reflection:  Transformative Justice In and Among Us

Danger, lots of reading ahead! I wrote a reflection to the reflection I posted below from Adrienne Maree Brown.

I appreciate this reflection. I think about this often. I am also not above the occasional calling out. One of the things I wonder about is how to hone restorative practices, within a framework of transformative justice, when so few people nurture their own practice or have yet to really understand what it means to practice transformative justice. All of my training has always taught me to stray away from the "Why" and to center more around what happened, who was harmed and how. I believe that we're still sadly a far way off from being able to really engage with this type of work, as so many of us, socialized in america, have been taught to equate justice with vengeance. People want their pound of flesh and they call that accountability. People want public humiliation and punishment, and they'll call that accountability as well.

Conversely, I see a usefulness in "calling out" certain people. I think some things can't wait. Generally my code is something like "If this person's behavior is immediately harmful; if this person has been given private opportunities to come to understandings with the persons they've harmed and have still not done the work; if we're in danger," then I feel like it's okay to call attention to them in a public way.

But this is my personal code, not a set of guidelines that I expect others to follow, and here is where the waters get especially murky, right? Folks who work around and within issues of social justice want to believe that we're all coming from the same places, doing the same types of work with the same level of intention. When this mythic bubble is perforated, this causes that feeling like the floor has dropped out beneath us. We scramble for the nearest thing to security that we can find and because so many of us are so damaged by our lives, by our histories, by being socialized in america, we react the way we've been trained; give them anger, give them vengeance, get rid of them.

Anyhow, this wasn't meant to be a long thing, but here it is. What is tranformative justice? It is the very act of taking the power from the harm that was done and building up and forward. It's a method of reparation and accountability. It's not anything that can occur on social media. Social media might be a good place to frame conversations or cull questions from, but I think we need to stop looking at this social media piece as THE thing that's causing discord, disharmony, etc. What's happening is that people feel betrayed and are looking for accountability and yet have no idea how to go about getting that need met. If folks are really willing to do the work, then transformative frameworks will proliferate throughout our communities. I believe though that we need to focus less on how people are calling others out on the internet and instead focus in on what they are saying. Beyond the barbs and the snark and the ALL CAPS are people who feel harmed and that needs to be addressed. If folks who know how to do the work are committed to doing it, then I think we'll see some positive building come from these recent "call outs".

What is/isn’t transformative justice? at adrienne maree brown

[shakeses]

(purposelysayingnothingaboutmarriage)

The work ain't nearly done. Not by a long shot. Not by three.

I wanna see momentum behind demilitarization of the cops And destruction of the prison industrial complex And white supremacy And patriarchy (re: violence against children, against women, against people; economical, physical, etc)

I want to see equity in public education. I want to see the middle class erupt, because "just getting by" isn't an excuse to stop committing oneself to action for a better world. I want to see the homos make a case and fight for reparations And decolonization And TRANS LIVES who made middle class, open existence possible And BLACK LIVES who continue to be fodder for capitalism (scoop us up, churn us out; product) And on. And on.

Will I be holding my breath too long again?

‪#‎thankfulfortheskinofmyteeth‬ ‪#‎putacorkinitweaintdone‬

[justice4mikebrown]

Antonio Martin was murdered 6 months ago.

The name of the officer who shot and killed Antonio Martin still has not been released.

Police still haven’t released any photos or videos of Antonio Martin holding or pointing a gun at the officer.

[shakeses]

In Defense of No Flag

I'm not gonna post yet another picture of the confederate (small "c", thanks) flag here.  By now you already have a solid idea of what it looks like, where it came from, whom it benefits, who feels terrorized by it.  Thanks be to the internet, many of you are miniature experts on it.  I personally learned that there was a stars and bars Clinton/Gore Button back in '92 (sidenote, Hillary has nothing to say about it).  I also learned that back then Governor Clinton signed Act 116. which basically honored the stars on the Arkansas flag as a tribute to the confederate flag.  (Hillary has nothing to say about this either).   Maybe this tells me something, but probably it doesn't.  

I have ZERO interest in this resurgent conversation about the confederate flag.  I actually I find it to be a bit of a red herring, as though talking around symbols of racism - specifically anti-Black racism - is the same as acknowledging all our parts in it, or more to the point, that it could possibly absolve whiteness from its place as a terrorizing mechanism in this country.  To be more specific, one can not make the confederate flag (or the rhodesian flag or the flag of the Afrikaners) responsible for the murders of 9 Black people in a church or millions of Black people the country, the centuries over.  That was white supremacy.  That was a white man.

I definitely know that it's easier to do the work of burning and smashing symbols than tearing down institutions.  I find this to be worthy work.  But it s not THE work.  As the liberal conversation dips its toes into "this flag is a bad flag" and all of the personalities, big and small, who have a stake in presenting as anti-racists (dare they call themselves "pro-Black"?), I see these same folks run from the obvious tidal wave the rest of us have been riding, and crashing again and again; the american flag is as terrorizing as the so-called stars and bars.  Chuck D once said, "Look at the flag, our blood's a flood without credit," and he was right.  More death has been wreaked by the hands of those bearing the Red, White and Blue the world over than the Stars and Bars.  

Whether or not a state should fly one flag of conquest over another is not my fight.  I'm not interested.  I personally prefer to see the confederate flag because it always clearly lets me know where I stand or rather, where I shouldn't.  I have a feeling had the man who shot 9 Black people in a church been wearing a recognizably racist flag, that the people in the church might have had more of a fighting chance to survive. But what would have happened had there been a national conversation about the racism and the genocide of Ol' Glory?  What if we were doing the real work instead of sounding off, again, about the confederate flag?  What if the real work consisted of daily conversations about race and reparations on this giant patch of earth we all occupy?  If all of us in this place were honest about how and upon whose backs we came, then would there be 9 dead Black people in a church?  Would there be fewer dead Black Lives splattered on concrete nation-wide?  

And they're the point.  They're who matter here.  Not this or that flag.  Not obscure historical facts or opinions.  If you're indigenous from north to south or you're Black or your people were colonized in the early 1900's, then either flag is a conquerors flag, either flag stands for racism, terrorism and genocide and until that is part of the mainstream conversation, then talking about the confederate flag will remain an easy distraction, cheap points for bloated politicians or for people afraid to overturn White Supremacy for good.

Carry on.

[shakeses]

Black Looks Like

In the words of the once great lyricist Ice Cube,

"...callin me an "African-American", like everything is fair again, shit!  Devil, you gotta get your shit right, I'm Black! Blacker than a trillion midnights!"

And bell hooks on Shirley Chisolm's radicalness,

"Often her colleagues described her as mad if she took positions they didn't understand or would not have taken. Radical black female subjects are constantly labeled crazy by those who hope to undermine our personal power and our ability to influence others."

And Lorraine Hansberry, in her genius play Les Blancs (Act Two, Scene Two),

Charlie: Nonsense! To me you are no more "the Blacks" than I am "the Whites" - [Charlie does some dumb shit here] That is I can't speak for you - but I am myself.

Thsembe: And that of course is nonsense! you are a tide, a flood -

And of course, there is the brilliant Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who wrote in Americanah,

"The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come..."

so basically,

‪#‎byerachel

[shakeses]

Pipelines

I spent my adolescent and teen-aged years in Ventura. As we grew older, my friends and I would take any opportunity to get out of town, always eager to find what lie beyond our strange coastal town, surrounded by foothills and freeways, rich people and folks struggling to get by, beaches and chain-stores. Though we charged all over the lower section of the borders called California, we seemed to find the most solace in the places not that far from home. Matilija, Sespe, Emma Wood, Faria, Hobsons, El Capitan, Refugio - these were places we went to celebrate, to smoke weed, to debate whatever felt relevant in the world while hiking or camping in full view of the edge of it. Some of my friends preferred to swim and surf right up in it. We'd lay around in the sand and occasionally we'd even do something as innocent as collect rocks or search for sea-glass. Sometimes the rocks were black and soft. We'd comment that this was oil. Even in those earlier times we knew that oil was congealing up on the shore, though we didn't have any of the historical or technical knowledge to really back up what we were thinking. Shaking our heads we'd walk away leaving the oil chips behind us, forgetting.

Some of the best sunsets I've ever seen have been on the coastline between Ventura and Gaviota, where the 101 bends inland - but not too close - toward the Central Valley. My first year of college was at Santa Barbara City College. I went there because I wanted to learn more and I couldn't afford the colleges my essays got me into and the thought of going to Ventura Community College after high school was depressing. I spent many days at the beach finishing readings for class wondering about the oil platforms off the coast which, in the late 90's were very few. I spent weekends in the Matilija canyon or in LA watching punks do stupid punk things, or at Hobsons or El Cap or Refugio sleeping outside.

There was a boom of sorts and it seems to me now that our favorite beach camping sites were impacted by more and more Winnebago Warriors and just as suddenly as the moon turns the tides, we were watching yet another sunset and there were more and more oil platforms on the horizon. People were concerned about Plains All American and Shell - the most well-known company running and leasing oil fields all over California. I remember being green and eager and thinking that Lois Capps was going to stop coastal drilling just like her newly-dead husband had promised to do. She paid the necessary lip-service but Santa Barbara was more concerned with revenue than danger and the oil companies promised to put their rigs as far back from the coast as was acceptable to the old timers with money (the view being more important than the environmental impact) and there they were. Almost over night. More and more platforms, more revenue for the County and the State, nothing more for anyone else. Nobody talked about what a pipeline carries. Part of the ethos of "see no evil", I suppose.

Life moves on and we all moved away and every once in a while we'd all end up in town at the same time and we'd try to make a youthful charge up the coast to visit our old haunts, rarely making it past Surfer's Point, let alone the last mile-marker out of Ventura.

We forget about things until we're called to remember them.

So I read about this latest oil spill tonight, and of course, since it is closer to home, I'm feeling about it a lot more than I'm thinking about it in dialectic, political terms. Much like everything these days it's at once a tragedy in the truest sense of the word and also devastatingly predictable which, to a positive cynic like myself, makes the whole thing simply sad. The birds are coated in oil. The waves crudely awash in what may as well be dollar bills as other companies rush and bid for high dollar contracts to scoop them up.

Refugees of teen-dom from nearby towns will merely stop going to the beach. People will rationalize that this wasn't as big as Valdez or Deepwater; the beaches will stay closed and we'll all adapt and shift until we find a comfortable place to not think about these horrible things for a while. It's what people do.

[shakeses]

Coupla Things; It’s A Riot

Coupla few things: 1) Discussing the destruction of property as though it is on par with the death of another Black person at the hands of the police is disgusting, and it tells us what you really think of us (Black life =\= property). Not like we didn't already know... 2) The looting of malls and CVS' and 7-11's is not a tragedy. The murder of Black people by police, the number of Black and Brown people funneled off to prisons, the tortures and murders of our trans brothers and sisters, the fact that no matter how brilliant you are you will never be more than a nigger - those are tragedies. The fact that injuries to police get more air time than the millions of injuries CAUSED by police is a fuckin tragedy. 3) If prior possession of cocaine is an executable offense, then by that logic hundreds of people I know personally, and Hollywood and stockbrokers and rockstars should all be put to death. 4) If possession of a switchblade is an executable offense, then I think at least everybody I know who grew up male should be executed. Oh, and me too. 5) "Peaceful Protests" keep us manageable. We need to be unmanaged. In fact, we need to kick the managers out the fuckin store, lock the doors, and then burn the thing to the ground. Then, we need to build a new store, for us (to continue the metaphor). You should hear these fools on the fuckin news, shaping idiot opinions one breath at a time..."

[shakeses]

On the Black experience:

One can be at the bar on a Sunday drinking local beer (proof of taste), reading a complex narrative of war (proof of intelligence), wearing a shirt that indicates a love of music other than hip-hop (Hornss) and still some old white guy will approach you, talk your ear off about how he knows the author of the book you're reading (without asking your opinion of it) and when he's done. will insist on hittin a pound ("fist-bump"), even when you extend your hand for a handshake.

*note how this description of experience has almost nothing to do with you.

[shakeses]

Self-Injury

My first response, after caring for the wound she inflicted on herself, was to hold my breath, so I did. Then I wanted to write about it but I was at work, so I couldn't.

What you need to know, to believe and to understand, is that 8 year old girls who have survived many traumas injure themselves on purpose.

[shakeses]

Gender With Kids

Continuing the conversations about gender and queerness with the kids today, I answered a lot of questions about what I think is the difference between being a "tomboy" and a transperson. We talked about identities. I told them that usually people look at me and first think I'm a boy (generous kids). Upon hearing my name people then look at my clothes and determine that I'm still a boy. I told them that it usually takes a few rounds before folks realize that in spite of what people think of me, I identify as a woman (or in their terms, a "girl".) The kids kept wanting to conflate tomboys with transfolks and I gently nudged them away from that clearing by telling them that I'm a tomboy but that deep down I'd love to be able to skateboard in high heels and a mini skirt. I told them that, especially when I was younger I would pretend to be a "boy", but that I've always known from my core that I was a "girl", which is different from always knowing you're a boy but being told that you're a girl. They seemed to get that.

Later on, my homey Karen Cortez and a couple a coworkers and I were talking more about teaching this and we talked about a student we have (who is a G!!!) and how when she was younger she interchanged "boy clothes" and "girl clothes" often. She's a badass soccer player, skater, loyal friend, fierce big sister and a social genius. Karen and I talked about how this kid kind of went from presenting mostly as a tomboy to lately presenting more as femme (and not playing as much soccer because adults... never mind...) Having known this kid since she was a tiny and seeing and having lived through our own harried adolescence, we deduce that she can't necessarily interchange right now because of the intense pressure to conform to gender norms coming from her peers, from within our cultures and from society at large. Also, every time she shows up looking femme, everyone has everything to say about it, as though her appearance is for us.

I stopped any femme type of dress for decades because of all the shock/surprise/glee/curiosity/humor that people felt they could visit on my body without my asking for it.

Social control is the elephant in the room.

At the end of each circle today and yesterday, I told the kids that a famous Black woman (Maya) once said, "When people tell you who they are, believe them."

Basically, I love skateboards, books, sports, politics, bubble baths, skirts, problematic shit, eyeliner, boots, femme on femme on butch on andro on dude comraderie and milkshakes.

‪#‎itdoesnthavetogetbettertogetclearer‬ ‪#‎fuckyougenderbinary‬

[shakeses]

News Round Up

In other news, bombing ISIS is, unsurprisingly, ramping up recruitment into the not-so-doomed insurrectionist enterprise. Good-cop Obama has announced a slow withdrawal from Afghanistan while bad-cop Republican senator Tillis has some doubts. Palestine joined the Inernational Criminal Court. Perhaps they'll press China on human rights issues, as the united states clearly has no intention to ever do so. Militants killed 147 Kenyans at Garissa University today. In South Africa, the Economic Freedom Fighters burned a war memorial dedicated to British soldiers. The EFF demands, among other things, that the government take down all colonial statues in South Africa.

Speaking of selling things, we still sell and buy tons of crap to and from China; still not so much from Cuba though. VP Joe Biden favors a "not in my backyard, but over there is fine" approach. Assata is still under warrant with a price on her head.

Meanwhile on this geographic slab of dirt, the man who filmed Eric Garner's murder is still in jail. There were jailbreaks in Jackson, Miss., Eastern Illinois and Santa Clara and SF, Ca (the second one this year for SF). The police still exist. Greg Suhr suspended 8 cops for texting how they really feel about everyone who is not a straight and white man.

Finally, Governor Moon Beam is attempting to regulate consumer water use. A closer look at his record shows that in the last year alone he has vetoed legislation which would have curbed or ended dumping pollutants into California's water supply.

Let's look at the weather forecast...

Europe is trying to sue google. You can google that story on your own.

[shakeses]

On Spiders and Fear of a Black Planet

True story:

Today, while lying in my bed reading I looked over and I saw a spider about three quarters of an inch in diameter crawling on the wall next to my head. Without thinking about it I leapt up, grabbed the piece of paper, and smashed that thing until it was an unrecognizable blob. I killed it because I am afraid of spiders. Because I didn't want it to get me. Because I didn't want to be sleeping and wake up one day with it in my bed. Because once i got a spider bite. Because there seem to be spiders everywhere lately. I killed it because I was afraid of it. And because I have the power to do so. I didn't think of any other options. I didn't think to put it on some paper and carry it outside. I didn't think to look up what kind of spider it was to determine whether or not it was safe or not. I just looked at that thing and then killed it. Because I was afraid of what it could possibly do.

So here I am hours later and I'm thinking about this spider streak on my wall and it occurrs to me that my reaction to the spider is the quintessential definition of fear. And when we talk about how fear operates within racism, one could use my story about the spider and easily replace spider with the word Black person, thus delivering the "reasons" why everyone is "afraid" of Black people and why we die, go to prison and are generally worse off than most everyone else.

Please continue with your day.

[shakeses]

What you need to know about today is that there are kids whom nobody is excited to see; kids from whom the people who are supposed to love them recoil; there are kids whom nobody loves; there are kids who have nobody on their side. And that is largely all of our faults. Nobody gets off clean. If we spent as much time building community as we do complaining about anything, we'd be the stronger for it, and more importantly, every body, and every kid would get to be loved.

‪#‎millionmiddlefingermarchuntiltheendoftime‬

[shakeses]

Burn Hollywood Burn

I never watch the Oscars simply because I have a "Burn Hollywood, Burn," mentality about industries that rip the last dollar out of our hands so that we can escape from our complicated lives for a minute, only to allow the damn fantasy to seep in so much that we start acting like and being like and worshiping, like, celebrities. It's disgusting how much money and time we put into building "stars", how much of our lives and our thoughts we give them (they don't give a fuck about us). Stars are disgusting, unless they're up beyond the atmosphere.

That being said, I remember the year that Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won the Best People In the World Award at the Oscars for Monster's Ball and Training Day. I remember because every white radio personality, every television pundit (also all white "back in the days" lol) in the country had something to say about how Halle Berry can't act and how she's not really Black, but Denzel's performance as a bad guy was "rivetting". (Reminder, Denzel played a corrupt cop who was basically a gangster and Ethan Hawke was the good white rookie trying to save the ghetto; Halle Berry was a single mom, poor, struggling and complicated, whose ex was on death row. Billy Bob Thornton played the correctional officer who was gonna kill him, but not before he screwed Halle Berry and told his daddy to fuck off). I remember how other people I knew started going in on Halle Berry saying the same shit that all the white dudes were saying, and I thought, "This is what you do this shit for, Halle? So that everyone can question your realness and your Blackness and act like it didn't mean a damn thing two days later?" Then I thought, and I still ALWAYS think about how complicit we ALL are in keeping this machine going all the time. I know this might make me unpopular, but I honestly hope NO BLACK PEOPLE WIN NO OSCARS. I'd rather see an outright racist institution than be a token for one.

cuz.