So this is pretty cool. A show I’m co-hosting this Monday, March 5 @caveatnyc got featured in The NY Times. It’s gonna be a great show! Me and @ang.pal are going to teach you about what it means to have shared psychosis aka Folie A Deux and yes it’s tragic and bloody and murdery, but it’s also entertaining and weird and crazy so come through! Support our first show!!! Tink to lix in my biography. ✌🏽😎💉🔪 (at New York, New York)

More o dat thanks ❤️ (at San Francisco, California)

SHOCK TOWN, POPULATION ME. Turns out, San Francisco is beautiful,🤙🏾👌🏾God is real, cliffs are terrifying and hang gliding is a thing that people actually do and yes mom I’m looking into it, I need it! #february #2018 #vacation #california #chillybutGood #prettycity #doIHaveToGoBack (at Fort Funston)

Twitter deleted her thread. Reblog to save it. #Love it!

Hi, I'm from Floyd's Knobbs, Indiana.

If I wasn't a fan of hers before I certainly am now. What a woman. This is amazing, inspiring, wonderfully written and a fantastic update on a very shitty situation. go Akilah.

Crown Victoria - Update

I had a conversation with Rich, the owner of Crown Victoria Bar in Williamsburg on Monday evening. He expressed his sincere condolences for how poorly his staff handled the situation. He claims that the employees had a hearing wherein they watched back surveillance footage (a claim that is in conflict with their official statement btw), and that the mostly female staff and he decided that the security company they hired for the bar AND the manager in question should be immediately terminated. He assured me that the entire ordeal made him sick. That he doesn’t want to run a bar where things like that can happen. That he wants to do better. 

I’ve taken a day to sit with how I feel about the decision, and these are my thoughts in no particular order:

+ I’m incredibly grateful to the masses rallying against violence and misogyny. I am humbled by the fact that the community is taking a stand and will not sit back and watch this sort of violence happen passively. I cry thinking of the women who aren’t as lucky as me. Who don’t have an audience or social media presence that can go to bat for them. Ask yourself: If this situation had happened the same way, but it wasn’t someone with a verified Twitter account or 100k followers on YouTube, would the staff have been fired? Would the owner have been moved to action? Without the swarm of comments and negative ratings, would anything have changed? What would become of THAT woman? Who is protecting HER? That’s why I had to be vocal. I am vocal for every woman who has been dehumanized in their hour of need and nothing was done about it. Together we’ve sent a very clear message: our neighborhood is BETTER than this. It’s 2015, and we won’t tolerate bullying abusive behavior from those hired to protect. You’d better believe other bars in the area have taken notice, and are making changes. We shouldn’t apologize or feel guilty for that.

+ You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if you harbor ill-will and bias against women (especially in BARS–places where women are more likely to be mistreated). You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if the very thought of getting mace in your eye instills grave fear in your heart. You absolutely SHOULD NOT be a security guard if your number one priority isn’t diffusing situations and helping those in need. I am lucky that so many people have been rational and understood that this entire situation could have been avoided had the empathetic and humane choice been made on behalf of the bar. We can ask a million lawyers what responsibility a bar has to those on its sidewalk–but there’s no gray area when discussing a bruised and bloodied person requesting ice and a call to the police and instead they are belittled, intimidated, and denied assistance.

+ From a PR standpoint, there’s no reason this apology should not be updated to reflect our discussion and posted publicly on Crown Victoria’s Facebook page. Jezebel posed the question, “Can you unexplode a social media bomb?” To which I say: Yes. Rich and the staff of Crown Vic can absolutely come back from this: Admit you’re wrong as publicly as possible–not in a link on your unpopular Twitter page; That is just putting the onus on the survivor to share your remorse. You aren’t owed that. Ask your community for FORGIVENESS, and vow to create programs and sensitivity trainings for all employees. Make it a point to not just use the neighborhood for financial gain, but actually MAKE IT BETTER. It’s not my responsibility to help them win back the public, but I just gave them 3 really good ideas about where to start. 

+ To the women still employed by Crown Victoria: I am sorry that you don’t feel safe working at the bar because of this situation. I feel doubly sorry that because Crown Vic hasn’t posted the apology in a more-public way, misogynist assholes are vowing to come to your bar in a misguided show of support:

^That^ is far more frightening than people calling and shaming you for the situation. There are men basically threatening that if you do anything that annoys them while they are in your bar, they are going to punch you in the face. Of course I’d be worried about continuing my employment there! If you truly agree with the decision to remove those toxic employees that caused this, encourage Crown Victoria Bar to reiterate that sentiment on Facebook and on the homepage of their website. I am currently fielding death threats, and sick, pathetic, small men telling me how I probably did deserve to be punched in the face. These same men continue to say, “We don’t know the whole story.” Realize that it’s not my responsibility to tell your employer’s side of the story. They’ve had every opportunity to be transparent about this. As sad as I am for you, I’m honestly much sadder for me and my injured friend. As bad as I feel about your careers, I have faith that you will be fine. Crown Vic is not known for their stellar cocktails or creating superstar bartenders–and there are loads and loads of bars in NYC that are hiring. You are not helpless. You will find other employment if Crown Victoria doesn’t turn this around. I feel no guilt or responsibility if they choose not to.

+ To the men who continue to harass me: I don’t care. You aren’t owed an explanation from me. You aren’t owed a comment thread to harass me further. I will do everything within my legal power to reveal your identities, because this is not an anonymous forum and frankly, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Your information should be easily Google-able. If you don’t want to take that risk, you might want to leave well-enough alone. Disqus says I can’t reveal your IP addresses in the comment thread. I have your IP addresses in the email alerts, and have screen grabs of all of it. Personally, I’d advise against testing me. Doxing isn’t bullying when you’re too cowardly to use your name as you’re going out of your way to harass a woman who’s been abused. Best believe I am armed within my legal rights and I’m not going to live a day in fear because you’re immature, unevolved, and out of control. You’re the kind of people with manifestos and unchecked inferiority complexes. It’s scary and frankly, pitiful.

+ As for the man who punched me: That investigation is underway with the NYPD and I cannot comment about it. It obviously means a greater deal to me that this monster is caught and locked up than that we continue to discuss this bar. There was indeed a police report filed the night of the incident in front of Crown Victoria Bar. There is a good chance we will catch this guy based on his ejection from Free Hold bar and the surveillance footage on the corner and from Crown Vic. I believe the police have more incentive to bring this man to justice because this story has picked up so much local attention. So no, I have no regrets.

-Akilah

this is unreal. do not go to this bar.

WOMEN: DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN. NOT EVEN ONCE.

SIGNAL. BOOST. TW: Violent Attack and Abuse, Victim Blaming.

Let me preface this with: I am fine. I’m going to be fine. I got lucky because my friends were there to help. I would say “this sort of thing doesn’t happen to people like me,” but the truth is there’s not a certain kind of person it happens to. It just happens because there are shitty people in the world. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG. DO NOT GO TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR IN WILLIAMSBURG.

A man brutally attacked me, and the only reason I’m not dead or in a coma is because my friend stepped in and fought for me. At the end of the scuffle I grabbed my mace and hit him with it, and the truly lovely men who work at Crown Vic told me that they WOULD NOT get me ice. Would not get my friend ice– That I should be careful with my mace, it “could have hit *them*” And *my favorite* comment “it’s shocking I don’t get punched in the face more often by men since I’m ‘so annoying.’” To be fair, I can be hella annoying (lol), but being the victim of a crime should not be seen as annoying. Should not give license to a manager to GET IN THE FACE of a woman on the sidewalk outside of his bar and say she deserves more of the same.  NO ONE deserves to be abused and the fact that three grown men watched a woman get punched in the face and refused to help her is reason for me to believe that they aren’t looking out for you and they absolutely WILL NOT protect you if you go there. 

You will get roofied.

You will get raped.

You might get beaten.

And THEY. WILL. BLAME. YOU. FOR. IT.

There are plenty of bars to chill with friends in that neighborhood. DO NOT RISK GOING TO CROWN VICTORIA BAR AND BEER GARDENS IN WILLIAMSBURG. It might save your life.

LINKS TO HELP ME TEAR THAT ESTABLISHMENT TO THE GROUND: Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/crown-victoria-brooklyn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Crown-Victoria-Bar-and-Beer-Gardens-126719327416962/reviews/ Email: [email protected] Phone Number: (917) 719-6072 Instagram: https://instagram.com/crownvicnyc/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/crownvicbar

PLEASE REBLOG, REVIEW THEM, CALL THEM–EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIVE IN BROOKLYN OR NEW YORK CITY. WE NEED TO PROTECT WOMEN AT HOME AND ELSEWHERE.

This is a great fucking article about a great fucking show. Who the fuck fucking wrote this?! it’s fucking good!

2. People are nice and Is this Love?

I went to pick-up my laundry this morning from the laundry guy. I think he has a crush on me. Okay okay. Backstory. I used to be one of those people who “did their own laundry” but since I’ve decided to stop being a “time waster” I have other people do “it.” It’s pretty cool. Back to the present. So I pick up my laundry and it’s folded. I didn’t pay for them to do that, they just did it. I paid specifically for them to wash and dry, but then to go the extra step and fold it? yeah. pretty sure that’s love. There was also another guy on the street who asked me for spare change. He wasn’t asking just anybody though. He was only asking a few of us and he kind of singled me out in a cool way. 

I think I’m gonna like it here. 

1. Train Ride.

I was on the train earlier staring at this woman and judging her super hard. I hated everything about her. Her jeans, her dumb jacket that desperately needed to be dry cleaned. Her stupid, thick, hipster glasses. She looked like a huge nerd. Then about a minute after my analysis I realized I was looking in a mirror. Some guy across me had a mirror. And it was in front of me. I wasn’t looking at a stranger. Or was I? No. I was seeing me. I apologized to the man, then to the mirror then (most important) to myself, using the mirror. Then the 3 of us all made out. Everyone on the train was super into it, this is true, I’m not just seeking attention on the internet, this really happened and life is good.

POLIO SUITS OMG getting one rn

Please I’m ordering a pair rn

lol 

Different densities of liquids

One of the funniest, most heartbreaking Michael Scott moments. God damn, I miss this show. 

when straight white boys get dumped

You wish. hahaha

I’m proud to announce that I’ll be the voice of the White Ninja a new 6 second Animated Series on Vine - Coming Soon

View more Paul Scheer on WhoSay

I know it’s not Thursday, but #tbt playing with my brother in da streetz.

Read @buzzfeed‘s story of these two cute baby bears and how they were always arguing. Clips from the #BearCam at Katmai National Park in Alaska have been turned into a story for the ages!