racism

Buffalo Soldiers

Posted on by karyn deshields

Pushing your cart with the rickety wheel through the supermarket, picking up the unbruised apples and putting them in the plastic bag you just snatched apart from the roll, grabbing spaghetti noodles and sauce off the shelf thinking of the dinner you’ll serve to your fam…

“There was a Buffalo Soldier in the heart of America” -Bob Marley

This shit doesn’t stop. In markets, where we pick up the staples of nutrition to feed our families. In SCHOOLS where we drop off our babies in the morning to learn so they gain the knowledge to build or destroy. In church where we praise God, and we all are infused with the spirit of building our communities. In the capital where the elected officials, our ancestors died to give us the right to choose, make laws. In the capital where our elected officials need to pass laws that make it harder to get a gun than a driver’s license. In the capital where our elected officials need to look more like the community at large and less like the graduating class of Harvard in 1950, a bunch of old White dudes. White boys who are taught they alone are the majority, the mode, and the median begat White boys who write manifestos about losing their rightful place on their social, financial, and professional throne, and plan to take it back with ARs and AKs.

So ingrained in them by privilege and supremacy that they are the numero uno, the most important thought and voice, that the minute someone doesn’t agree or someone’s voice is elevated, they terrorize churches, schools, supermarket. These are the last places one expects, but suddenly the places people fear, to be threatened. They use guns to paralyze us. They use police to legally murder us. They use courts to disproportionately cage us like animals. We are being terrorized by tyranny. We are being traumatized by racism.

“Buffalo soldier, Buffalo soldier
Will you survive in this new land?”-The Persuasions

18-year old Payton Gendron killed ten Black people in Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo. He had been seen for psychiatric help based on a murder-suicide letter he wrote but didn’t have his guns taken away as allowed under New York laws. Instead he went to Buffalo, because it had the most Black residents in his area. He originally planned to go to a church or school, but chose the grocery store hoping to kill more people. He went the day prior to stake out the store posing as a panhandler. The murderer legally purchased the AR-15 style gun used in the attack. bought a shotgun in December and received a rifle as a Christmas present at 16. While one must be 21 to buy a handgun one can buy an assault rifle at 18. A bill to change this will likely sit in the Senate after passing the House.

Sounds like January 6th. Which according to the idiots who support racism wasn’t a coup or insurrection. I guess this wasn’t a murder either.

Children don’t vote. The average age of the Buffalo victims minus the youngest victim is 65. 65 year old Black people vote, primarily Democratic, in record numbers. So after 22 mass shootings killing 246 people this year alone; babies shot at Parkland; Columbine; and parishioners killed during bible study in Charleston, we finally get some action. Our lives don’t seen to matter when we are living, Our lives aren’t worth protecting only our potential votes. Black bodies and young bodies are treated as invaluable until our bodies littering the ground and floor affect their bottom line. It feel like a political move not a humanitarian one. Yet we continue to fight.

“Buffalo soldier
Tell me when will they call you, you a man?”

The trauma of racism is real. Like all trauma, it needs to be medicated and healed, perhaps not with pills but definitely with therapy. Like my bestie says, Everybody needs therapy. So employers need to provide trauma counselors for employees who deal with this constant trauma. Organizations that address Black issues need to host group therapy sessions to deal with racial trauma. And these racial attacks need to be identified as such.

Our racial trauma needs to be prioritized. We need to be honored for fighting for freedom constantly in a country that doesn’t seem to value us. We need to be valued. Our trauma needs to be recognized. Since the Civil War, we have been fighting against racism by serving in the Union army against the Confederacy. Over 150 years later our hair is still curly and our bodies are still used as shields but our humanity denied. Those ten Black people who were shopping in that grocery store were Buffalo soldiers.

“There was a Buffalo Soldier
In the heart of America
Stolen from Africa, brought to America
Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival”-Bob Marley

When will surviving annihilation become living peacefully…

All My Life I had to Fight

Posted on by karyn deshields

Oh you know…

Mrs. Sophia is home now and there are about to be some truths told and some discussions had. Mrs. Sophia is the collective 40+ Black Woman who has lived a little life, turned a couple of heads, kissed a few toads, had to tell some wrinkled old ass White lady in the store that she is not her errand girl or handmaid and will not be cut off or disrespected, and had to get into someone’s actual ass, like a baby mole, because they fail to get the message… I AIN’T THE ONE!

Imma be all over the place this time, cuz this is an all over the place kind of conversation. But bear with me, because I guarantee you are gonna wanna shout, do a praise dance, sit in silence, and plan as my girl called it “a pajama and bonnet caper” all at the same time after you read some of these stories I’m about to tell you. So let’s jump in the deep water.

• • •

A girlfriend of mine sought my counsel (I’m kind and smart, but twice as ignorant and very liable to choose violence… in other words, very wise counsel) because her Black child’s predominately White school decided it was a good idea to take a trip to Monticello and Jamestown. Wait… one second. Monticello, the place where Thomas Jefferson owned 600 slaves that does tours of slave quarters. The same place he impregnated his slave, a woman he OWNED, who was not considered a WHOLE HUMAN, Sally Hemmings, with six children. A place where young Black girls were enslaved and raped. THAT place. And Jamestown, the site where Africans stolen from their land were sold to White plantation owners who enslaved these people in what turned out to be hundreds of years of violent servitude. We have primarily White teachers taking their White students and a handful of Black and Hispanic children on this trip down fucked up memory lane. You wanna beat them over the head with your privilege?

I have been to Monticello, now I hear that now they are much more forthright about Jefferson’s slaveowner history. But it’s been clear… the slave cabins are still standing. They talked more about his china service than the very real historical implications of this plantation. So my friend was concerned about how these teachers were prepared to have discussions about slavery in Monticello and Jamestown and asked such questions to the teachers and staff promoting the trip… and she was ready to scrap if the answer was wrong. Cuz this is often our lives. Taking responsibility for educating clueless White people on how their actions, choices, decisions have racial implications and moreover exposing to them how unprepared they are for the ricochet. Be clear its not always a contentious conversation, but we go into it ready to pounce. There are just some fights we shouldn’t have to continue to have… but yet ALL my life I had to fight.

• • •

Another friend of mine moved her family to take a position that promised upward mobility, greater responsibility, and support in meeting her professional goals. Not very long into her position, she realized that while she was extremely qualified for the role, they had hit the jackpot by hiring a qualified, Black, female for this job. So many tokens earned off the one hire. And like a company that lack diversity and inclusionary policies, she soon realized she had jumped in a chlorinated pool of White tears and privilege. But Black girls put on a swim cap and a one-shoulder ruffled one piece… and swim. So after being questioned by one of her colleagues to the point of harassment, she had to “per my last email”, “to reiterate” and “kind regards” her way to Human Resources. If “Get this bitch the fuck off of me QUICK” was a person….

Understand… I can get her off of me, but neither of you will like how I do it. This is a professional environment, and if you want to keep this Eames chair and Steelcase desk you paid a thousand dollars for from sailing through the hallway at her big ass head, I suggest you be the one to remind her of where we are. For many Black women in the corporate space, the expectation to keep quiet and tolerate discrimination and bias; being overlooked and underpaid; having folks think they can touch or comment on our braids, natural hair, or African wax print blouse, or for that matter any parts of ourselves, is still a power play. But we often out work these clowns and are more educated and experienced, and know we can take our talents elsewhere… so it’s in a company’s best interest to ensure it’s slow are made fast and those of limited intellect are made whole. I mean there is always the parking lot… cuz All MY life I had to fight.

And just so we are clear, this is not necessarily a White v. Black issue, but a Supremacy & Privilege v. Black issue. There are some real self-hating Black people who align with the discrimination and anti-Black tactics in the workplace (and out). One of my former co-workers was often commented upon by a jealous hating ass Black woman in a management position, about her body. Sis is thick like Luke dancers, and this woman would ask her about having work done, what undergarments she wore, why her body was shaped that way, and why her clothes fit like they did. “Why is your body so big and your stomach so flat?”

See… I can’t even put into words how magnificently I would have burrowed myself so deep in her ass she’d have been defacating dance videos, candy corn, J. Alexander crab cakes, and Jordans for three months. But alas when this same old miserable cow attempted this line of similar foolishness with me, I let her know all bets were off in your neighborhood Spartan store… and there was nothing but space and opportunity outside the company gates. I was prepared to make her pay for all the Africans who sold slaves off the coast of Congo, and each of the “my name is Toby… the first time” slaves who readied young Sally with a lemongrass bath and a starched yellowed petticoat to Jefferson’s liking. While White folks are lynching us in the streets and in our homes while we sleep or watch tv, often there are a few folks that look like you who try to hang you by the rope they are dangling from. But nope… you can’t take me out. All my life I HAD TO fight.

• • •

So here we come full circle. As much as you shouldn’t try me, my kid is a war you don’t want… and don’t let it be a race war, I’m playing whack-a-mole with a frying pan. My kid had to be about five and his teacher, a substitute, called a group of Black boy children being a little disruptive… but it was KINDERGARDEN so there’s that… thugs. Yep, you read it right. THUGS. I picked him up, dedpite bring under the weather, and he told me immediately upon getting in the car. So I slid into a parking space, got my blanket and my box of tissues, and we proceeded to her classroom where I went off for for every wronged Black student since Ruby Bridges.

I inquired whether calling her, she was Arabic, brothers terrorists would be acceptable, or whether talking to her with a stereotypical “hiyact” or “ach” attached to English words would be offensive… as I sneezed, collected snot rags in my palm, and swaddled myself in the Spongebob blanket. She didn’t say much, and the couple in the room with us were chuckling when I was serious. I reminded her that boys and girls, young little ladies and young lads, or descendants of African Kings and Queens, was to be the extent if her name calling. She remarked she hadn’t said it to my son. “They are ALL my sons!” I exclaimed. Listen, I won’t bring you none, but don’t start none either! All my life I had to FIGHT.

Fight for respect from old, racist, crotch rotted Millys. Fight for my people against Donald and David and their lynchmob of good ole’ boys. Fight against Candaces and Condoleezas who were live and in living color Pecola Breedloves secretly hoping for blond hair and blue eyes to the point of being cultural turncoats. Fight against Karen and her group of Susans and their fragility and tears, while siccing their racist hounds upon us. See while fighting for a seat at the table or for the capital to buy our own table, against racism, for diversity and inclusion, against the “strong, Black, invincible” woman trope, we still gotta knuckle up against other humans. It’s exhausting, we tired. But trust, while my sister is about to go in with a hot 16 on dat ass, I’m always there to be her hype man, repeating the last word of every sentence, to let folks know, “Mrs Sophia home… and things are gonna change round here!”

Bonnet Applebum

Posted on by karyn deshields

Ya’ll have taken bonnets so far… to places they never imagined they would go. Misgynoir. Hating Black women. False narratives. Freedom. Being chastised by a woman with her breasts hanging free in a robe on a video broadcast beyond just outside, but for everyone to see. My sweet babies never did anything to anybody but try to preserve your roller set while you slept. But like ya’ll do, it’s gone too far.

This is simple shit. Let me tell you what it is not before I tell you what it is. It’s not misogynoir. Stop it. Stop that now. So someone pointed out to me that it’s been said durags, the Black male version of a bonnet, are worn outside and haven’t received as much static. Others that the bonnet is just a stand in for anything that represents a Black woman’s freedom, and this backlash as a way to police our freedom by limiting our comfort. Nope and nope. Back in the late 90s when durags came in black and the occasional white, Black guys started wearing them under their caps, tied with the flap in the wind, or untied flaps to the side similar to a Nemes headdress worn by Egyptian pharaohs. In fact it’s designed in exactly the same style.

In 2001 and 2005, this primarily Black cultural item was banned by the NFL and NBA and then several school districts as gang related. This item made specifically to help lay down hair to create a 360 degree wave hairstyle, which was coincidentally (or not) started in ancient Egypt was not gang related but used as a tool of racism. So it cannot be said bonnets are receiving some unprecedented hatred. In protest, durags in multiple colors and styles started being worn by Black men and women. This isn’t new… but I would venture it is different.

Venture with me… take a walk if you will. The original version of “Bonita Applebum” by A Tribe Called Quest was rapped by Q-Tip in a typical rap cadence that confirmed to the beat. He read an 1985 issue of SPIN magazine with an interview with Miles Davis who spoke about using pauses, or moments of silence in the song, to create space for conversation between the notes, the instruments, or in this case, the words. When the song was mixed for the ATCQ first album, Q-Tip slowed down the cadence and used pauses to mimic having a conversation with a young lady about his interest in her. “Hey Bonita (pause) Glad to meet ya!”

Bonnets, Bonnets, Bonnets…

Bonnets aren’t being chastised by the White establishment as some object of racial negativity. This is mainly sistas talking to other sistas, a moment of pause, to create a conversation about the phenomenon of wearing hair bonnets outside as a head covering. Every sista doesn’t engage her peers in the most compassionate and understanding way… understood. However, this isn’t an attack, it’s an observation and the attempt at conversation. Women in my age range were taught that you don’t go outside representing yourself poorly… you can be unique,yourself, and comfortable while being the best version of yourself. There was a separation between what you did in the privacy of your home and how you showed up outside those doors. Women in younger generations seem to attach themselves to the IDGAF mantra, and present and dress however they want in any forum. Social media has blurred the lines of private and public and all of your life is on display, so there is no privacy. No one is trying to police Black women, but simply trying to understand and educate. The hair bonnet is a tool of self-care, like your perm rods to set your natural hairstyle, your nightgown, your unicorn slippers, your pajamas with the feet in them, or the little pieces of paper you stick to your face after you do your weekly facial. Self-care can be many things, and one of those things is engaging in sacred self rejuvenation to reenergize and reinvigorate. We typically emerge from these rituals ready for the opportunity that awaits us. Oh you fancy hunh?

And that doesn’t mean we present how men want us to, or White people want us to, but how we feel our best and most prepared selves. Being able to present that self to the world is freedom. She can be fresh faced or made up, hair natural or straight or brown or blue, clothing tailored or bohemian, pierced or tatted or bejeweled or thicker than a snicker. But she is prepared for the opportunities she wants to find her, so she can scoop them up and take advantage of them. The blurring of the private and public is real, but that doesn’t make everything private, it makes it ALL public. Saying mind your business is cute, but if I’m the one with the opportunity that you want, good luck with that! How you present is my business. Freedom is more than just doing what you want. Lots of people in jail did what they wanted…

Freedom is the ability to be our best self without constraint, to practice self-determination in a responsible and bold manner, and to have equitable access to the reservoir of opportunity. When our choice of head gear was being used to discriminate against and punish us along racial lines, we cut patterns out of floral velvet, lace, and rhinestone mesh and made a fashion statement of it. When our hairstyles were being banned at work we made noise, made our natural hair a cultural phenomenon, and got legislation passed to protect our right to wear our hair as it grows from our head or any other way we choose. But labeling bonnet gate some kind of ministry against Black women by some phantom Black woman hater is bordering on the dramatic. Mainly because it’s us heeding the call. I don’t hate Black women… I am a Black woman with a drawer full of bonnets, naturally curly hair, and an occasional bad hair day. Yet I despise seeing women in bonnets in public.

Now I’m not gonna sweet baby you to death and approach you about the bonnet on your head in Target. I am not gonna do a bonnet call to action. I’m not going to tell you what you cannot do… you certainly can wear a bonnet in public. But I am going to tell you that object was not made for outside wear. That object is a tool of comfort, and if you feel most comfortable in it, more power to you, but chances are you are hiding or protecting what’s underneath it. If you are hiding it, trust that the bonnet is worse. If you are trying to preserve your curls for your date night, trust that ain’t the way. There are a bevy of scarves and headwraps made so that you can do just that, and still present like the free woman you are, who does and wears what she wants, who is ALSO prepared to meet all the best opportunities the world may offer you at any moment. You are best prepared for that with your bonnet on your bedside table. Trust me.

What I am not interested in though, ever… is the false narratives we didn’t author being the reason why we make choices. What White people or men think… which is often the underlying idea… especially when those thoughts are teamed with racial and sexual stereotypes and biases, should never be our raison d’être. Ever. Fuck racism and sexism twice. That is not our ministry. Everything that centers Black women does not have to be about or regarding negativity surrounding our Blackness and our womanhood. Black women are highly policed in terms of how we present. Black women are also highly criticized for how we look while simultaneously mimicked by the most famous White women in the world. So I get it, but this isn’t that. This is simply another sista reminding you who you are, what our freedom looks like, and how we can seek and express that freedom responsibly and boldly free from racist and sexist gaze. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves, especially our younger selves, that our freedom, my sweet babies, doesn’t look like anyone else’s… it’s intersectional, complicated, and more nuanced. Let’s not confuse us reminding each other who we are for misogynoir. That’s not hot. And you can accept it or reject it, but I’m gonna always put you on…

If you can’t stand the heat…

Posted on by karyn deshields

“Women want too much”

“Black women are too aggressive”

“Older women with children aren’t desirable”

“Less than perfect women should not expect to be protected and provided for by a man”

“Strong women don’t intimidate men… unless she thinks strong means aggressive, rude, unpleasant, and outspoken”

Strong, old, Black, too short, too tall, too big, too skinny, and just people with vaginas say a rousing… Fuck you! The Trumps, Richard Spencers, Robert Fischers, Kevin Samuels, Umar Johnsons and all the men who subscribe to their particular brand of women hating can also grab a seat on the Fuck You train. Men who have taken credit for women’s accomplishments, deemed us too weak and not smart enough, or James Evan’ed us to the kitchen and the bedroom instead of the lectern, boardroom, classroom, or wherever the hell we wanted to be… fuck ya’ll too! Check this out, real men don’t sit around dissecting and dictating who and what women should and can be. Men with time to focus on what women are doing or not doing should perhaps find another job, lift some weights, pick up a hammer or chisel, do some carpentry or masonry, or choke on BBQ smoke. Pick one.

Sexism is a tale as old as time. Before a White man ever thought about enslaving a Black man, he was controlling his wife. Many extremely smart women in the 19th century and early 20th century never married, such as Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Caroline Hershel, or their accomplishments were credited to their husbands. Women feigned being dense or dim-witted to marry, because men weren’t interested in smart women, but women who would bear them heirs, look pretty on their arm, curtsy, and make a good biscuit for their tea. Sadly, not much has changed. Women who champion feminism and the rights of women, or those whose successes brought about the need for that championing are looked at as aggressive, masculine, independent, and uninterested in male companionship, marriage, child-bearing, and things the patriarchy paints as feminine. This is true across racial lines, and especially true, a remnant of both racism and sexism, for Black women.

Here is a truth… as a collective, NO other group of women in history have been as abandoned and abused, and then victim blamed as Black women. None. Our victimization has been at the hands of men: men in power, particularly White men, and men we share blood or affinity to, particularly Black men. Those are facts. Slavery separated us from our ancestral families in Africa and the ones we created in America. We were forced to bear the slave children of our Masters, creating an emotional wedge between us and our slave husbands. The Civil War left us without husbands, alone to raise children, who fought on the front lines for a country that would never treat us fairly. Jim Crow and Black Codes destroyed the communities of color we built, leaving us destitute and unable to feed, clothe, and house ourselves. Black women were forced to take on maid and mammy roles while Black men were forced out of the job market. Desperation and unjust laws left them jailed and us alone to raise kids with no men in the home, practically destroying the Black nuclear family.

Today, remnants of watching our single mothers struggle but persevere while knowing our father’s chose not to participate in our family reside just under the surface. We watched our brother’s take on man roles in a child’s body, and now see them struggling to overcome the stigma of incarceration. We remember our uncles, real and play, teaching them that manhood was about how many women, cars, and dollars you could stack and never showing emotion, compassion, or vulnerability. We see them mistreating our friends and sisters, helping themselves to whatever we have and leaving us worse off than we started. We stay at Friend of the Court trying to get them to help buy a pack of diapers or help pay for DeVanté, who looks just like his trifling ass, go to the private school so he can be a doctor like he always talks about. Before you get in your feelings, YES, there are plethora of Black men, men period, who are excellent husbands, fathers, friends, and leaders. We salute you!!! 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 But for any man to spend his time determining that how we broadcast strength and resilience is wrong and indicative of our worth, without acknowledging what we have been through… he might want to consider that he is just further victimizing us with his judgement and patriarchal bullshit. Fuck you guy.

You want us in the kitchen frying your pickerel in lace underwear, real booty banging, hair laid (and it can be weave as long as you can’t tell), smiling and calling you King. But fish grease pops, so when we put our clothes back on we are rude, when we tie our hair back we are aggressive, and when we stop smiling we are rude. No, we just got fucking burned… but we keep on cooking. It’s you who can’t stand the heat bruh… so back your ass up out of the kitchen until your balls drop, you can grab them, and come help me tend to my burns. Until then, keep your fucked up opinions to yourself. How I exhibit strength is MY BUSINESS. If you don’t like it, then go find a woman you like, cuz the fact that you are talking about it MEANS that you are single af. Figure out why that is before you lay out your philosophy on why some woman, you don’t want, acts in a way you don’t agree with. Newsflash… she likely doesn’t give a fuck!

Your homework: Before you write a dissertation on why certain women are so undesirable, figure out why nobody wants you?!?

Women are always caping for men… all women. We keep your secrets, help you hide bodies, and cover your abuse with Maybelline… because we want to help make you better before we give up in you. But we are sick of your abuse, your judgements, your dominion… and we won’t continue to be your victims. We can be bad by ourselves. We can choose who and what we want to be. We can exist, live and breathe and walk and talk, without seeking your approval. And the entire truth is…

“Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.” 1 Corinthians 11:9.

Get it right!

black is the magic color

Posted on by karyn deshields

This isn’t about Black Girl Magic or Black Boy Joy. In fact, all magic isn’t good… and that’s what I’m here to talk about today ladies & gentleman, boys and girls. Black is the color of American racism… it’s the color that most threatens White supremacy and privilege, the magic color of hate and racism. So today, this, this is about calling that out, and simultaneously honoring the lives and protesting the deaths of Trayvon, Mike, Alton, Amadou, Breonna, George, Philando, Akai, Freddie, Oscar, Jordan, Ahmaud, Daunte, Atatianna, Sandra, Tamir, Ma’Khia, and all of our other murdered Black people at the hands of White people and police officers that most often goes unpunished.

Murders supported by the powers that be, per their lack of action.

I’m all for anti-discrimination legislation. Full stop.

Black people have a history of enslavement that dates back to the 1600s in America. We were the subject of Black Codes which limited our movement in post-slavery America; legal lynchings; Jim Crow practices in the South that maintained segregation; and continuing programs, policies, and legislation in housing, education, finance, employment, and politics in national, state, and local levels. While the 14th Amendment and Title VII have been enacted to seemingly deter racism, these and other anti-racism and anti-discrimination laws do little to stop the outright racist killings of Black people, even unarmed Black people.

The Dyer anti-lynching law was introduced in 1918, to make lynching illegal. 103 years later… ONE HUNDRED THREE… this bill is still awaiting passage in the Senate. 103 years. The act of hoisting a Black body from a tree limb, in public, by a rope, from the neck, is not EXPRESSLY illegally federally, after that practice claimed so many lives throughout Black history in America. One hundred and three years later we are still waiting for that law to pass Congress. Yet in 1998, James Byrd was effectively lynched by being dragged by truck until his head was severed. Black is the color of racism.

In 1999, 22 years ago…TWENTY TWO… Amadou Diallo was shot by police officers after being mistaken for a rapist, while unarmed. He was shot several times in his armpits, showing he had his hands up in surrender to the police. Yet just a few days ago a thirteen year old child, shown in a video with his empty hands raised above his head, was killed by police, and a young lady defending herself with a kitchen knife against adult women at her own home was shot and killed by a police officer, no deescalation tactics used. These kinds of stories come every few months if not every few days. So many times White police officers enter situations involving Black people and deadly force is the only tactic they recall, not deescalation, disarming, crisis management, nothing. The only skill they recall with Black people is how to fire bullets into our bodies. Yet Dylan Roof killed Black parishioners in a church and got Burger King after, and probably his choice of Coke or Sprite. Black is the color of bias.

In 1998, along with James Byrd, Mathew Shepard was murdered, but not because of his race, Shepard was a White gay male. In 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act which added gender and sexual orientation to the 1969 Hate Crimes Act, and removed the requirement for race based hate crime victims to be engaged in certain federal activities. The law did nothing to make lynching a federal crime and is known as the Mathew Shepard Act because of its sweeping addition of gender and sexual orientation based additions to the law. While we can all agree it was a necessary and needed piece of legislation, Congress failed to effectively legislate on a practice that Black people in America had feared and faced for hundreds of years. Black is the color of inequality.

In 2020, COVID-19 spread throughout America. In part due to the then administrations messaging regarding the virus being a “Chinese virus” due to it’s impetus in Wuhan, China, anti-Asian attitudes heightened in America. This led to the introduction of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. This came to a head on March 16th when six Asians were killed in Atlanta. By April 22nd, just yesterday, the bill had passed both the House and Senate. It will surely become legislation once signed by President Biden. While we can all agree this is a necessary and needed piece of legislation, Black people have been being shot and killed by police and targeted by racists with weapons they should not have since well before COVID. Yet police and gun reform remain elusive, and people still coddle and make excuses for White people who murder Black people. Black is the color of injustice.

Hate, bias, discrimination, injustice, inequality… are all colored with the Black crayon in American culture. Devoid of light… dark… negative… unworthy. But we know better. We know we are enchanting, captivating, joyous, charming, fantastic, mystical, mysterious, desirable, amazing, miraculous, and magical. Black is not the absence of light, it is the physical absorption of every hue of visible light. We must act like we know who we are despite how others might try to convince us otherwise!

We must demand better. We must use our vote, our financial power, our voices to demand better. We can post Black Lives Matter memes and Black fists raised in solidarity in social media all day, but until we truly hold America accountable for the way it backseats Black life because of the notion that our magic makes them disappear, those posts hold no weight and don’t elevate us. The haters already know we are magic…

“Hate won’t get you high as this
Levitate, levitate, levitate, levitate”-Kendrick Lamar

What is Caucasity

Posted on by karyn deshields

Oh the caucasity…

It is the express or implied utter audacity to say or do something knowingly out of sheer White privilege or supremacy. It is also a group activity where White people react and respond to that audacity with surprise, amazement, confusion, denial at the heinous activities of those of Caucasian descent that they would demonize from another racial group. So now that we know what it is, a little talk on it…

So this past weekend I was literally disgusted by and simultaneously baffled by the Woody Allen documentary Allen v. Farrow. The movie documents Woody Allen’s obsession with Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter and his sexual abuse of her as a child. It also highlights his relationship and marriage to her older adopted child, Soon-Yi Previn. Moreover, however, it highlights Allen’s adoration even during and after these allegations and the media’s vilification of Farrow and questioning of the truthfulness and memory of his victim. It made me angry that I loved the movie “Blue Jasmine” and had watched and supported it, after knowing of his marriage to Soon-Yi, even though his sexual abuse of Dylan Farrow I was unaware of. Like my utter distaste and disgust for R. Kelly, I took on a similar feeling of Allen. But I watched these White actors and actresses, as Allen’s films rarely have any people of color, call him genius, brilliant, praise him, gush over his talents and his personhood. The caucasity.

Woody Allen is a vile creature. He ruined the lives of these women and their mother by sexually abusing them in the home she chose to share with and welcome him into. These women will forever be traumatized by his presence and America’s adoration of him… not just as an artist but as a man. These actors and actresses were aware he was married to the adopted child of his partner of 12 years and had at the time allegedly molested her other daughter. He predicated his financial support of his other children, biological or adopted, with Farrow on then condemning their mother and sister publicly. He is a monster. Everyone should agree. White, Black, Puerto Rican. The act of dismissing this, especially so strongly in the White community… caucasity.

Piers Morgan & Sharon Osbourne… the British caucasity… it’s international. So first, royalism is a code word for racism when it insinuates that a Black person in a royal role is somehow against the royal code. It is no different than that former President questioning the birthright of Barack Obama to be the President. So, defending that shit is what… you guessed it… caucasity. It is also something else… racism. Defending racism is racist. You don’t have to lynch Black peole to be racist. You can sit next to and touch Black people and be racist. You can claim to have Black friends and be racist. You can never have called a Black person a nigger and be racist. Defending racism makes you racist. Period.

But for Sharon Osbourne to have the express gall to tell a Black person, who was actually extending grace to her racist sympathizing ass, how to react in a conversation about racism… ooooh chile. Sheryl Underwood should have Queens of Comedy’ed her ass and cussed her out to the white meat. That was some of the most extreme caucasity ever. It was also dangerous. I don’t promote violence… but folks have been jumped on for much less. Plus, you can’t hide behind being British. You just racist. I don’t care if you live off the Nile in a small home, you have tribal marks, and you are mashing casava for tonight’s fufu… if you are White and you defend racism or you try to judge what a Black person experience’s due to her race, you racist and you are displaying pure caucasity.

Apparently there is a documentary in the college admissions scandal with Aunt Becky. I don’t have the energy to talk about that at length… just know this… folks been worried about getting in trouble using someone’s Southfield (a close suburb of Michigan) address so their kid’s could escape the reality of their poor Detroit neighborhood school if they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to pay for private primary school. That’s for a basic kindergarten through twelfth grade education… that everyone needs to get a minimum wage job. But we got millionaire’s paying for kids to gain admission to a university and taking photos rowing for scholarships when Madison can’t even swim?!? What is you doing Rebecca?!? You can PAY for these brats to go anywhere in the country where they can legitimately gain admission… do that. Don’t display this level of caucasity please…

It’s simple… White people don’t get to play by different rules and the rest of us are going to be silent about it. Nope. We are calling you tf out. If you believe that White privilege and supremacy are tools that you should use to gain advantage, you are a ridiculous and racist person… and you are the poster child for caucasity. Know what it is, reject it, or be labeled. It’s simple. And Black folks will gather others together in the name of caucasity if they want to join… cuz that shit is wack.

Black… and Yellow

Posted on by karyn deshields

Some mediocre singer made a song calling herself (and referencing men who want) a “yellowbone” or light skin Black woman with yellow undertones… similar to the term “redbone” which refers to lighter skin Black women with red undertones (perhaps from mixed heritage with Native Americans). Folks are like “OUTRAGE” it’s colorism.

The system of privilege that is begat from favoring people of lighter skin color over those of blacker skin color… that is colorism. Talking, singing, writing about complexion is not colorism, Being light skinned should not be a source of shame because it comes with privilege… mainly privilege we didn’t request and don’t want. I can assure you as a “redbone”, I don’t want any parts of colorism. Matter of fact don’t call me a redbone. My preference.

Ya’ll… we cannot be this silly. Let this girl make a song and get her coin. She’s light skinned, she thinks she’s the bees knees, let her. Men have been referencing redbones in their songs for decades, and nobody writes whole articles about some random song. But again, the problem here is that (1) women are held to a different standard than men and expected to stifle ourselves to promote and suport the masses when the masses don’t support us and (2) Black folks think we can ALL only be about some universally Black ideal and anything else is a problem.

Women can’t tall about our bodies, our hair, our wants, our dreams, the kind if men we want, nothing without some backlash on how what we said makes us look. I’m a hoe if I’m comfortable with my sexuality. Im a golddigger if I like men with their finances in order. I’m a golddigging hoe if I only date men who have stock options. But he can want a hoe, talk about his money, swipe his credit card down some chick’s ass and it’s all good. Hell Lil Wayne had a song Redbone Girl and Childish Gambino’s hit … like BIG HIT… was just entitled Redbone. But Danileigh (I know nothing about her so I had to look up her name) says “Yellowbone” and she’s a full on racist. Stop it. Stay woke.

Black people run the gamut from the palest to the darkest with everything in between. She simply said “Yellowbone that’s what he wants
Prada, me in Saint Laurent”… not Pulitzer Prize winning lyrics… but not worthy of outrage. It’s fake outrage. Be clear, it’s a horrible song and I’m sonically outraged, my ears are upset… but that’s it. She didn’t put anyone down. I think team light-skinned is dumb… but SO IS team dark-skinned… because we are one team. The facts are some men/women prefer light skin, some men/women prefer dark skin. It’s all good, like hair, it’s skin… it covers your body, it’s great. Whatever color it is. Bug let the girl sing her little song.

“French Vanilla, Butter Pecan, Chocolate Deluxe…

… even Caramel Sundae” (Ice Cream, Wu Tang)

It makes ZERO sense that a light skinned woman cannot attest to her virtues the same way a brown skinned woman is celebrated for attesting to hers… despite the past or the present. A brown sister posts that she’s a beautiful chocolate melanated Queen and “Yaaaassssssssssss” fill the comments. We should all get that same love if we celebrate ourselves. Black women are the least celebrated people walking the planet… all of us should come together to big up each other, skin color be damned. If she thinks she’s “sweeter and thicker than a Chico stick” (Sometimes I Rhyme Slow, Nice & Smooth) then that’s her prerogative the same as “drip broke the levees when my Kellys roll in” (Brown Skin Girl, Beyoncé). As long as she’s not proclaiming that she is the only image of beauty in the diaspora of Black skin… it’s all good. Relax.

Again, we have to stop being so judgmental of whatever sits outside of the box that Black Twitter has created. We are not meant to fit in… boxes or stereotypes. It is a stereotype that all light skin Black women are conceited, narcissistic, and vain. It is a vestige of racism that dark skin is inherently bad and therefore lighter skin automatically means a person is smarter, kinder, more beautiful, more desirable, more refined, worth more. That’s a lie that has been told to us… because in general we are darker than those who built the White power structure. It isn’t light skinned Black people racism was meant to exalt… be very clear! These ideas are not our own, they were given to us. It’s time to give them back. We can’t get over this hump because it has been so deeply ingrained that the lie keeps getting passed down in our DNA. I personally have benefitted from that dumb ass line of thinking and never ever wanted it.

There is a reason why a lot of militant ass folks… Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver were light skin Black people… on the receiving end of racism but somehow labeled the perpetrators of colorism. Nope… I will not be the bearer of your hate because the darkness if my skin was tainted by your rapist kinfolk. FOH! While it’s hurtful to be on the receiving end of racism and colorism surely, it is MADDENING to be both hated and seen as the puppet of your hater. I don’t subscribe to any tenets or byproducts if racism. I see beauty in all that Black people are… and I don’t have to damn any part of it as pennance for my privilege. I’m militant AF. Black mixed with Black. Be completely clear. I’m also smart, cute, and the whole bag. My skin color is apart of me just like my eye and hair color. All together that shit is popping. I hope you feel the same about yourself!

Frankly, Im tired if discourse on this subject, but it’s still a very real source of trauma for Black people. As such, I’ll do my minuscule part in helping solve the problem. But we gotta start with giving each other a bit more grace. If we are going to chastise this girl, let’s berate her on the quality of this song… cuz it swings real low on that scale. But if Childish Gambino can sing to his “peanut butter chocolate cake with Kool-Aid” (Redbone)… then she can sing about being yellow. Revamp those he-man woman haters club bylaws and take the fake outrage out. These ultra raggedy dudes still out here calling beautiful brown skinned women “blackie”… be outraged about that shit please!

“Let the Willie Lynch theory reverse a million times with Complexion/Complexion don’t mean a thing…”Complexion, Kendrick Lamar

Bash Mister’s Head Open…

Posted on by karyn deshields

Did you finish it!?

I know you know it.

“…and think about Heaven later!”

Amen!

Everyday it seems, there is a moment that highlights for me the strength and resilience of Black women who stand in their Blackness and their womanhood. Today was no different. Today’s manifestation gave me greater insight on two groups I don’t belong to… black women (as distinctly opposed to Black women) and coy White women. As women, we couldn’t be more different.

So Black women don’t have the luxury of privilege and protection that White women do or the luxury of patriarchal privilege that White men do. We have to stand up, put our hands on our hips, and let our backbones slip with some stank on it… particularly professionally and socially. We are at the height of a pandemic where simple things like using safety measures to protect oneself are discouraged by our world leader, when the pandemic is having its most major affect in racially diverse and heavily populated areas. We have to be real clear on where we stand. Black people are continually brutalized and murdered by wayward police officers, so we have to be real clear on where we stand. Our incumbent President can’t open his mouth to declare white supremacy a human rights violation, so we have to be real clear on where we stand. We also have to be clear on who we stand in fellowship with, allow in our circle and blindly support.

For clarity, black women belong to the Black racial group but they often see their racial culture as secondary to the other cultures they belong to… women, evangelical Christian, wealthy, whatever. So instead of experiencing their race and sex and class and culture intersectionally, they backseat their Blackness. So they find themselves often in some sort of struggle when they have to defend and stand up in their Blackness with their evangelical, wealthy, White cohorts. People they usually have more affinity to than folks who look like them.

Data shows… White evangelicals overwhelmingly voted for Trump, at 76%. 55% of White women voted against their own interests to vote for Trump with 61% of White men. 54% of those who make over $100K did as well. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html). So if these are your folks, you need to know these facts. If you are a black woman, you have to get real clear about where your faith and your tolerance collide. Personally I see no issue. God commands us to love, so as God’s soldier you mandated and indoctrinated with the purpose of calling out hate, whether it is rooted in race, gender, sexual orientation, class, whatever. You should have no problem condemning hate and every instance of it… socially, professionally, even politically. That’s the cause you take up as an evangelical. But again numbers don’t lie… so look your White evangelical friends and colleagues and customers in the face… be real clear or not, the choice is yours. But when they spit back racist, sexist, homophobic, classist vitriol… and you’ve been silent…

“… in yo face/open yo mouth, give you a taste.” -Missy Elliot

It is most likely that 76% of your White Christian friends see you as “a good black” and are okay with the rest of us jungle heathens going back to hellhole countries despite having a much larger ancestral claim to America, as we know it, than they do. If you are okay with that… sobeit. You black, it’s all good. But if you are Black, this is your friendship mantra, and you aren’t afraid to go tell it on the mountain…

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” -James Baldwin

Be clear, I have friends and acquaintances of many a hue. However I’m very clear about how differently we are allowed to see life. Some shit I can’t ignore or blindly accept. Other shit I just cannot do. Unless I’m surrounded by folks who look like me who make decisions, chances are I’m going to be seen as a problem professionally. I’m smart, assertive, outspoken, and equally skilled and talented. I’ve had to learn how to fight for me. I don’t have the luxury of whining and looking for barriers of protection. But white women…

Do.

On more than one occasion I have witnessed a White woman’s response to mistreatment or unfairness. It’s like watching her sink in quicksand, hand just outstretched, no fight, no struggle, just this assurance she’d be saved. Often she was. But now I know why it took so long to let women become soldiers… cuz they (White women because Black women been fighting) are gonna scream, drop their weapon, and go hide behind their captain. It’s the same way they vote for their husband’s instead of their own… phantom protection. Be clear sis… he likely dislikes you more than he dislikes Tyrone. Racism is rooted in American society, Sexism is rooted in the American family.

So while coy white women , cuz White women like Black women are not a monolith, are trying to show integrity to people who will lie to them and sabotage them, mainly White men… they willingly shrink instead of bossing up to fight. And for a Black woman who is used to being second guessed, called to prove her worth, sabotaged because I’m so fucking dope and they know it… that captain save me, lily livered, weakassery has no place in my life and it just sounds like desperation and quitting had a baby named Sarah. Stop it. Put on those big girl panties he hates so much and grab a choppa. Blow up his spot by calling out his sexism and highlighting his each and every wrong. Don’t shrink, grow up and strap on your Nancy Sinatra boots. Walk all over his ass!

“For most of history, anonymous was a woman.”-Virginia Woolf

As a woman free from her chains, it’s partially my job to show other women their own… so they can recognize them as chains and break free. This isn’t a condemnation, it’s a truth telling. So share this with your black women and coy White women friends…

You get Justice, if you’re Lucky

Posted on by karyn deshields

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know . -Maya Angelou, Alone

Life in 2020 is a constant cycle of trauma if you are Black in America. Black men face the constant pressure of being walking targets of brutality and fraudulent representations of waywardness. Black women treated as the weakest link when we literally anchor the totem in our dust. The last nine months have ushered in a physical and spiritual pandemic that has America in a chokehold and is both exhausting and overdue for Black folks. Protests, the exposure of racism and racists practices, and the real conversations on white privilege, supremacy, and responsibility are a true comeuppance. Yet simultaneously the constant broadcast of injustice, dead Black bodies, and loss of innocence are heartbreaking. My son’s drivers training class is having a discussion on “driving while Black”… a conversation whose necessity is obvious and life saving but also the face of racism and it’s affect on the Black cultural reality. The coming undone plays musically like the Janet Jackson sample…

Poetic Justice.

Black reality in this current space is like…
Pac and Janet.
Innocence and Pain.
Life and Death.
Trauma and Healing.
Cause and Effect.


Get your umbrella.

***

Read slow, and you’ll find gold mines in these lines. -Kendrick Lamar, Poetic Justice

Racism has always existed in the US, it is literally built upon it like bricks. It is the blood and bones of African slaves buried beneath Washington’s monuments. Yet 2020 has been a modern day Middle Passage, but cars instead of boats and prisons and cemeteries instead of plantations. State and government sanctioned murder and oppression of Black people, broadcast in living color. It reads like payback for our ascent that has challenged White men of what they thought was their birthright. A leader who with coded language and lies encourages the bad behavior of supremacy. Police officers who otherwise might have thought twice about shooting a Black man, woman, or child knows luck is on their side and justice will likely be suppressed. It seems, today is a good day when somebody got killed, instead of loved, in South Central LA.

The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan. –Maya Angelou, Alone

Blackness is a state of being and a state of mind. In America, our story is one of infinitesimal degrees of separation both physically and spiritually. Out of about 400,000 slaves shipped to North America through the slave trade, we now number over 42 million. We are connected very intimately to one another genetically. Brothers and sisters literally. Since our feet stepped on American soil we have lived with external oppression that has tricked some of us into internal betrayal, by breaking those bonds between us through separation, familial destruction, and mental torture.

There is, in every hood a series of dichotomous experiences. Pleasure and pain: we exude style, confidence, and creativity that is often forced to live in the shadows of violence and generational curses. A Pac and Janet, hood boy and good girl, love story set against a backdrop of hopeless and violence. The boys and girls in the hood suffer the trauma of racism and cultural confusion that affects both how we love and what we hate.

The reality of most urban communities is that Black and brown people have been pushed into these pockets by poverty, racist housing policies, and a lack of opportunity. But as communal people we make a family out of these circumstances the best we can. Play cousins; Aunties giving you dollars for As; your cousin braiding your hair in the porch steps; getting Grandma a new church crown; and doing the hustles at the family BBQ. Simultaneously battling internal struggles about who we are and our worth that have been handled down the emotional family tree like kinky hair and curves are handed down genetically. Black on Black crime is a fallacy; we are able and intelligent despite biased test scores; we are worthy despite the ruin we often live in and around m; and we are powerful despite the lack of our faces in public spaces. It’s not nature, but external cultural oppression that breeds internal cultural betrayal.

What we have in common is pain. -Kendrick

South Central, LA gang stories make sense, but love stories? Despite lives of hardship in a hard place, the characters played by Tupac Shakur and Janet Jackson were soft reminders of the beauty to be had by healing their deep pain and generational toxicity. Grief, death, fear, misogyny, distrust, selfishness colored their experiences, yet they were both representative of the very real innocence of love and connection. Violence and aggression are stories of necessity, like hip hop, they tell our story. Softness and love are our truth, like R&B, they make babies and families and communities. Lucky had a softness only hardened by reality, like Pillsbury and Doughboy were hardened by heat…choppas or circumstances. Be sure that hard shell you develop is only protective of your softness, and not preventing your brothers and sisters from reaching it.

As we protest that longstanding oppression ALONG with our own traumatic responses to watching our brothers and sisters killed in today’s streets, we find ourselves exhausted and in need of a reprieve. Karma will be our savior. Poetic Justice. The Buddhist theory of samsara teaches that after death, our spirits return to either the good realm or bad realm depending upon our actions during life. That realm is where we’ll exist until another death. Rebirth. As we heal and pay homage to our communal history and our generational truth, we are being reborn free. The oppressive shackles of racism only have wrists and ankles to bind that are afraid to break. Healing breaks you so you emerge whole. Trust, this entire year is one big therapy session. We gon be alright!

If I told you that a flower bloom in a dark room, would you trust it? -Kendrick

Ever wonder why we got all this rhythm? How we turn our blues into funk? Why we sing and cook and dance with soul… collard greens in our feet, baked mac and cheese bubbling over, and the sweet honey colored juice of yams coating our vocal chords so we can sing high line Minnie and deep like Mahalia. Why our hair winds, twists, turns up to the Heavens? Why we are painted in color? We are the sons and daughters of soul. The very place where love lives. The softest place on Earth.

And this is our exhausting reality. In one moment we mourn Breonna and the next celebrate Kamala. We are here to teach everyone else how to emerge from the ashes, whatever burned them. Only healed hearts can have that experience. You get Justice, if you are Lucky; if the stars align; if the color of your shirt is blue; or if you have dirt under your fingernails. But that doesn’t mean you ever stop fighting for her if you don’t get lucky. Despite what you’ve been told and no matter how many of your teeth they try to pull to force feed you racism, know that in reality they only want to slur your speech. We must speak, write, tweet, telegram, and Pony Express our experience, and let our collective, communal, and familial words holler out for justice and freedom, come hail, snow, sleet, or…

…there’s blood in my pen. –Kendrick Lamar

The Two Kamalas

Posted on by karyn deshields

On August 10th, 2020 reports came out that James “Kamala: The Ugandan Giant” Harris, the WWE wrestling star had died from COVID-19. When #RIPKamala trended on Twitter, people assumed the hashtag was in reference to Kamala Harris, the US Senator and potential running mate for Joe Biden. The very next day, Uncle Joe confirmed he had selected the Black female US Senator as his Vice-President nominee. Coincidences are just God reminding you, He created Dave Chappelle!

Both Kamalas have excelled at the top of their respective games. Yet both have been victims of America’s favor of white mediocrity over Black excellence.

James Harris was born to very meagar means, but through a series of encounters entered the wrestling world in Benton Harbor, Michigan under famous Black wrestler Bobo Brazil. He was brought into the WCW, in 1983, and at the behest of Jerry “The King” Lawler his character, Kamala The Ugandan Giant, a play off of Idi Amin and tribal Africans was born. The character played well in the racist South where wrestling was most popular, and where the mediocre dwell. As a result, Kamala grew in popularity, moving in to the bigger broadcast at WWE, and ongoing battles with superstars like Hulk Hogan, Jake “The Snake ” Roberts, Macho Man, and Andre “The Giant”… names you likely know whether you were ever into wrestling or not. Unlike many of the larger wrestlers, Harris was more agile and flexible, and could put on a show. He was actually athletic, and provided the movement and charisma in most of his matches against the superstar wrestlers. However well into his career, he was never paid as much as the White wrestlers, despite his popularity. Harris remembers being paid only $13,000 for a match The Undertaker was paid $500,000 for, well into his career. He was a wrestling great, who suffered from racism and the justification of it based on how profitable his character was to the company.

Kamala Harris is an alum of Howard University, graduate of the University of California-Hastings with a juris doctorate. She’s a lawyer, former district attorney of San Francisco, the Attorney General of the largest state of the union, a US Senator for ten years, and a former Democratic nominee for President. Yet, like the wrestler, she’s portrayed as an equally savage prison warden because of her work as a district attorney. Minutes after her announcement, Twitter erupted in misogynoir, talking about her inability to lead, her prosecutorial record as a DA, and spouting all the right wing media nonsense we have come to accept as gospel, instead of doing our own research. I don’t have time for a history lesson, but I can assure you of this…

Kamala Harris is an educated force of nature in an upcoming battle where she is the only warrior. Her running mate, although our best and only choice, is an old mediocre White man who America picked over excellent women and people of color, including Harris. Her opponents are two very mediocre White males, one a conservative talking head and the other, the spawn of evil who has locked up children in cages, allowed Black women to be abused and mistreated at his rally’s and applauded it, surrounded himself with a circus of wild and wacky Black people to prove he likes “the Blacks”, and told four Congresswomen of Black or Muslim heritage to go back where they came from, despite three of them being born US citizens and one of them being a naturalized citizen. In this ring, she is the only person who can go the full round without needing a medic and the only person who continues to prove she belongs in the upper ranks of government.

The biggest discussion during the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates will be the handling of this pandemic by the Republican administration, and its failure to save American lives by issuing a national policy to curb the spread of COVID and race. As sad as James “Kamala” Harris’s death is, it’s fate that the next day a Black woman with the same name would be in the running to break the ceiling on another first for Black Americans. Black Lives truly do Matter. She has a unique opportunity to wipe the mat with Trump and Pence, to not only expose them for the racists and public health piranas that they are, but to soak up Kamala The Ugandan Giant’s blood, sweat, and tears in honor of every Black person who has persevered through racism to bust through those ceilings. Just when we begin to wonder if our living is in vain, the universe yells out to us, “No, of course not!”

Like Kamala the wrestler had to don a costume that certainly was offensive to Black people, he also had a job to do and a character to play in the wrestling production. Similarly, Kamala the district attorney had to abide by policies and laws made by the government of California that continued to put Black men in prison, she too had a job to do and a character to play in the government’s production. Neither entertainers or politicians are at liberty to make their own rules up, they have to follow the producer’s rules and the government’s laws… if they want the job. But they must get the job to reckon with and expose its evils. We expect Black politicians to represent Black people, when in fact, their jobs are to represent the people who elect them. Instead, we should expect all politicians to be excellent leaders dedicated to freedom for all people, and against marginalizing people to keep them from success and realizing their true potential. Black people have had to sacrifice to get success despite being excellent. It’s time for America to take on excellence as the standard and discard this notion that Black people have to be 10x better to get 10% of the spoils of white mediocrity. After all, you can’t be truly free and truly brave AND mediocre.

Now grab your war paint and get in your wide legged stance, because we need to go win this thing. Ya heard.