Stubborn Scales

[daughterofdessalines]

Kamala Harris was at Howard University in July of this year to advocate for voting rights but has gone silent about Howard University students protesting poor living conditions on campus since mid-October. Just 🗑

[just-shower-thoughts]

With all our technological advances, it’s kind of amazing how bad we are at dealing with mental health

[just-shower-thoughts]

Everyone wants you to go the extra mile, but no one gives you the gas to do it.

[stubbornscales511]

Life Updates

I didn’t realize that so much time has passed. It is odd to look back and see that over a year has passed since my last #MyBlackLifeMatters post. To be honest, it became a little bit overwhelming. Last year was tough on everyone in different ways.

For me when things get tough, I turn up my advocacy and get lost in work. & while productive it takes a toll all the same. I have hit some major milestones along the way.

1) Graduating from law school

2) Studying and taking the SC Bar Exam

3) Deciding to move to California

4) Getting a job in California

5) starting my first full time legal job

6) Passing the South Carolina Bar exam

7) Driving from the East coast to the West coast to move into my new apartment in California

8) Starting a podcast called Radically Necessary

9) Having my first appearance as counsel in court

10) Preparing for the California Bar Exam

A LOT has happened in the span of one year and it. is. WILD.

& to be honest I am so tired. I’m here though, battling everyday. Making things go and for the most part, I have been successful.

I say all of this to say: Take care of yourselves. Take breaks, take vacations, enjoy your days, and ask for help when you need it.

Love yourself. Find your passion. Make positive changes.

[stubbornscales511]

Damnnnnn

Time just flew by. It’s weird how time works

How days can feel long but weeks feel short

And months by at what seems like the blink of an eye

Time leaves us powerless in that way

The thing that started and never stopped

Or the thing that just doesn’t exist

[lokis-bookish-boy-deactivated20]

[thenib]

Keith Knight.

[stubbornscales511]

I’ve had a lot of time to think, rethink, and think some more and I still don’t know...

I am not sure that I have ever been at a crossroads quite like this before & to be honest it is scary and unknown and exciting and all the things...

I just want to make sure it’s the right thing for me.

[stubbornscales511]

Hello Everyone!

So I have been on a break from writing recently, but I do have new content in the works. Life has just been really busy for me, but I promise that you will see new content in the coming weeks. I saw these images on Facebook this morning and this was my response:

As a Black woman it is “easy” to see the difference because it is something that I have lived everyday of me life. Seeing the divide and believing that if I just worked harder, managed my money, and pursued the highest level of education that I could... that things would be different. Well, at 27, I have been doing all of these things and the system is still the same. Throughout law school I have learned that the system is not broken, it is functioning as it was meant to and oppressing those that it intended to leave out all of those years ago. As people we should not have to make a system, that is suppose to protect us, work for us when it was not even built for us. The system needs to change and that starts by choosing the right people to lead the charge. Each election: local, state, and national is an opportunity to select those public leaders, but you do not have to be in public office to effect change in your community. Change starts in each and every one of us. Humanity and equality should lead us, not greed and power

[stubbornscales511]

Redlining Adjacent: First Time Home-Buyer

Honestly, I have not been writing lately because I have been blocked. I have these guided outlines of things that I want to write about and while they are all still very relevant and important, I am blocked. I am in the process of buying my first home, so I want to write about historical redlining, but I am blocked. I am not even really sure why… I wrote an entire 5,000+ word paper on the topic, but in this moment, it has not been easy to articulate. I do not know if the fact that I am in process of buying a home has me subconsciously trying not to feel my Blackness when I am viewing homes, picking which areas of my county I want to live in, and getting pre-approved by lenders.

Society has tried its best to ingrain in me that Black is wrong and white is right even though I am Black. When looking at homes knowing what my neighbors look like is a subconscious must for me. I ask myself are they young? Old? White? Black? Hispanic? Do they have children? What kind of things do they decorate their homes with? Do they have Trump/Pence bumper stickers? So many things run through my mind and that is just the neighbors. I am not even in the house yet.

Another part of the process which really ties into my last point takes it one step beyond the neighborhood, but the school district zoning. I am still pretty young, 27, but I would like a family in the future, which includes children (biological, fostered, or adopted) and when buying a home that is something that I think about as well. Is the school district in this area good? I mean I love this cute three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, but the schools in this area have low standardized testing scores. OR on the flip side… the schools in this area are really great, but there is not much diversity in these neighborhoods and schools, do I really want my future children to be the token brown children in their classes? Once again, I have not even made an offer on the home, but I am thinking about these things and they make me feel really Black. Do non-POC home-buyers think about these things? I want to believe that the answer is yes, but a part of me also knows that they ask those questions for very different reasons. It is tough and difficult to know when I am overthinking things, because I know that all of my questions are honest, valid, and fair to have and ask… but another part of me also knows why I take those thoughts a step further than other non-POCs might.

One of the most important parts of the process that I think about is my lender. Piece of advice to first time home-buyers, do your research. If you do not feel comfortable with your lender, find another one. If you are denied by a lender, find another one. DO NOT just accept what one person or lender tells you. If you want to buy a home, there is someone out there that will work with you. They want YOUR money, so do not just give it away to just any lender, because if you do not like them at the start of the process you will probably hate them later. Trust your gut. If you feel like you are not getting all of the information, you might not be. So definitely shop around. I worked hard to get my credit score up and save money for a down payment, so I am NOT going to let some man named “Gary” tell me that I do not have options. There are options.

Another tip is knowing what kind of loans (DPA, conventional, FHA, etc.) exist out there. Also, knowing what fixed term you would like for your loans. That can vary from ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty years. Going in with an idea and tentative plan is always a plus and you can always change your mind or find something better along the way. Like I said earlier, I will be a first-time home-buyer, but just because it is your first time buying a home does NOT mean that you should not be informed beforehand. Buying a home is a big step and you do not want to get taken advantage of or sell yourself short on opportunities that you could benefit from.  

That is all I have for this post. It is not about redlining and I promise I will get to that one at some point, but I do hope that my tips help someone out there. I will keep you all updated on my home-buying journey as well.

Thanks for reading!

[stubbornscales511]

Lost in Thought

I have so much on my mind and I am trying to figure out where to put it.. So here goes nothing. 

It is so so so so tough to be a woman of color that is also a pansexual in this world. Just one of those things is tough, but all three is just a major clusterfuck and hard to explain to anyone outside of that smaller group looking in. Especially when people are trying to understand. Find “common ground” and have empathy of some sort. It is tough!

& while I have been on this Earth for 27 years how tough it really is just depends on the day. Whether it is when I am in class and my professor makes statements that are littered with micro-aggressions towards people of color and immigrants or when I see white police officers and chills instantly rush through my body.

What about when I am advocating for a survivor of violence and as a woman I hurt for the way that the patriarch demands things that they cannot have from us or the same medical system that treats people of color differently than they do white patients. 

How about living in a state that wanted to roll back how same sex marriage is labeled with a potential bill that would then call it a “parody marriage.” Love wouldn’t even be equal then.

The racism, oppression and prejudice lie everywhere. It is in everything that I see and every place that I go. It determines HOW I can react to certain situations and how I will be perceived by others. My passion can be seen as sassy and my confidence seen as aggressive. All of my actions as a person will always be seen under a lens until the day that I die and some days it really just takes a toll on my spirit.

I would LOVE to have children one day, but do I really want to bring them into a world where I have to tell them that they will be judged everyday of their lives because of a factor that they could not control? That there will occasions where people will want them to make themselves smaller or their lives may be on the line. How their actions could be the difference between life or death?

These are the things that haunt my mind and dreams. I work everyday to build a better future for the world and my future family. I want my loved ones to understand and check their prejudice so that they can go forward with different thinking. I try to educate everyone that I can about the world so that they want to see more than their neighborhood and county... the thoughts just go on and on.

[stubbornscales511]

Political Point

As I was sitting in the chair at the dentist’s office I had a random political thought that has been running through my mind since 8am that I wanted to share.

Why does Mr. Trump care what women do with their bodies?

That thought got me thinking about why people do the things that they do, especially politics and how it effects everyone whether we realize it or not.

I will give you an example. Abortion, yes it is a hot button issue, but I am not going to delve into the science or morality of the actions so much as talk about the government control piece. With that being said, why does the government want to control what people do with their bodies, specifically women? When it comes to abortions and everyone has their own personal and religious beliefs about them, why should we as a society butt into that “private” area of someone’s life. In the same regard of insurance companies denying women access to birth control based on religious preferences. Some things just don’t add up.

I mean as a society we hail that this is the land of the free and home of the brave, but is it? Has it been? As a society we use to be in the forefront of innovation and discovery and now it seems as though we are back pedaling. We discover a safe way to terminate pregnancy for health reasons or elective purposes and now our legislators are restricting that technology and knowledge. Why was that science perfected all of those years ago, just to later be banned?

Or developing medication that can trick a woman’s hormones into thinking they are already pregnant to stop her period. Now, after all of those government dollars have been spent on research, once again legislators and companies are back pedaling and limiting access. It doesn’t add up.

We seek this knowledge and pay people to find it only to later write it off and deny people access to it. Our government has laws in place that they separate church and state, but the church and religion is still very tightly interwoven into the policies and regulations in place...

[stubbornscales511]

My Black Life Matters Daily [06.23.2020]

June 23, 2020. I find myself questioning the intentions of people in my life today. Not everyone, but specific individuals that have known to be self-serving. Individuals that are now pushing issues regarding race. Do not get me wrong I love a good ally, but as soon as I saw the post so many questions were running through my mind. What are their intentions? Why are they pushing this issue so hard now when just two weeks ago when others were pushing the same issues only radio silence could be heard… You have a record of taking all of the credit from peers, what is your agenda…

And I really do not want to have these thoughts, but with this individual something just feels hinky and completely off. Are you really down for the cause? Or do you just want people to see that you are down for the cause? Because those are two very different things. So many questions and no real answers.

[stubbornscales511]

My Black Life Matters Daily

Hey Followers!

After writing the first part of My Life Matters that I want to post on a weekly basis to discuss broad topics of unjust racism in the U.S. I had a full day and thoughts to unload....

So I decided to add “My Black Life Matters Daily” which are posts that directly discuss whatever happened in my day that really made me acknowledge my Blackness. This is not to say that I do not feel it every single minute of every single day, but some days like today events occur that really make me question whether a white person’s responses and actions would be the same if they could see the world from my eyes (perspective) for even just one day.

Check out the next My Black Life Matters Daily to see what I am talking about.

[stubbornscales511]

My Black Life Matters

Black Lives Matter.

That is what I will be documenting as the days, months, and years go on. I am just one person, I cannot speak for all, but I do know that Black Lives Matter. My Black life, Julian’s (my boyfriend) Black life matters, my family’s Black life matters. Needless to say, I understand that they matter, but surprisingly enough there are people, white people, out there that just do not understand that our lives matter and why we feel the need to say this. Their counter is almost always that “All Lives Matter” and NO ONE ever said that all lives did not matter the focus is just on Black lives specifically, because it is the Black body that this country, the United States, was built on. Slaves taken from the countries on the continent of Africa. Stolen from their country and their families. Brought to what is now the United States of America to make it the “Great” country that it is today.

I put the word great in quotations, because as previously mentioned for Black people our start in this country was not great and has never really been that great from a legal or social standpoint. Black people have been fighting for generations to get half as far as white people who never had to fight the oppression that comes with darker skin. To make it clear even though I know that if ever released someone will still find a way to twist this. Black people unlike their white counterparts have historically been at a disadvantage to white or more fair skinned people, because of just that… the color of their skin. With that oppression, comes so many things: redlining, misguided medical practices, hiring bias, and police brutality. Society has historically mistreated people of color in all areas of our lives and 2020 may be the year that lasting change finally starts to happen.

[stubbornscales511]

Update!

To my 12 followers,

I hope that you have friends that you can reblog this to, because I am starting a weekly series called My Black Life Matters. 

It will be my perspective of life as a Black, LGBTQ+ woman living in the United States of America. I am writing about this because life in the U.S. as any of those three things can be hell on wheels at any given moment, but all three is a unique and special blend.

Follow my story.

[kushandwizdom]

“There’s nothing more tedious than mentally and emotionally distancing yourself from people who are committed to bringing disruption into your life, to finally reach a place of tranquility, only for them to return with baggage from the past that you have healed and moved on from.”

— Meggan Roxanne