🖤🖤It’s Reparations Friday, y’all!🖤🖤

This week’s news has been devastating for many. But in reality, for folks who will be hardest impacted by abortion bans, particularly Black MaGes, even legal abortion has been out of reach for generations due to the links between anti-abortion sentiment and white supremacy. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/the-truth-about-the-religious-right-now-celebrating-the-end-of-roe.html

That said, right now we have our work cut out for us, friends. While abortion access for Black MaGes has always been a key pillar of the work of the Black organizers we at Reparations Roundtable are accountable to, we are still responsible for funding the long-term sustainability piece of the work. We need to raise $1,500 more this month to cover our monthly reparations commitments!

I’m committing to raising $100 of that amount for this month!! Who’s with me??

The money from this fundraiser will go towards the General Fund, as well as grassroots organizations providing free contraception to Black people who can get pregnant!!

This is super doable!! Let’s work together and do this!!

Direct link to the fund: PayPal.me/ReparationsR

My Venmo: @amanda-darer

My Cashapp: $teababe27

s🌸nday

Gold medal winner for the 4x100 relay, Tori Bowie, was eight months pregnant when she died at 32. 2 other Black gold medalists on the same relay team, Allyson Felix and Tianna Madison, had serious complications during their pregnancies.

Black women in America are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related causes than White women.

The quality of healthcare, underlying chronic conditions and racism prevent Black women from the same quality of care as White women. We have to do better America! It matters!

#EqualityForAll #FreshResists

I would like to make one thing very clear.

Helaena never flinched away from Alicent because she hates her and is afraid of her. She flinches away because she is autistic and hates touch. I occasionally do the same thing with my husband, it doesn’t mean I hate him. It means I don’t respond well to physical contact.

I stand before Cardan, and he looks mortifying in his beauty. He carelessly slumps down on the sofa in his chambers, blissfully unaware of my anxiety. Or, worse, blissfully aware.

“I ought to be mad at you,” he says, and I almost flinch at the sound.

“As I said, I didn’t kill my husband, Your Majesty,” my voice shakes, and I hold onto the hope he will think I am holding back tears.

“Yes, that would be correct. Your husband is sitting in front of you, well and alive. Is he not?”

viivdle productive era??

my ~1900w jurdan fanfic heaven and hell were words to me is out now!!

i tried something different with this one, hopefully it was a good something different

this fic is for @annamatix who i have the pleasure to call my friend. i hope this is just the right amount of "romancy"

happy ramadan<33

Free Our Mothers!

I got to collaborate with the women in the People's Paper Co-op's #artsandadvocacyfellowship to create a powerful portrait. My illustration (plus +9 others!) will be sold as posters w/ 100% proceeds going to @phillybailout to help bring home Black mothers!

See all the art here: https://villageindustries.myshopify.com/collections/co-op

Digital illustration of a woman holding a microphone in the clouds. Below is a rainbow with children running through a sprinkler. Surrounding them are trees, flowers and clouds. Text reads, 'our mothers don't deserve to be locked away. they should be home smiling and laughing as our children run, play, and scream screams of happiness through the yard'

please say more about jilypad + diverging parenting styles... perhaps even a possible scenario >:) i imagine harry has very cunning tactics for using this to his advantage

helloooooo <3 thank u for this ask bc i love talking about these three and harry. i went looking thru the archives to find this post; my first foray into this side, and really, i’ve never looked back after that.

so i’ve talked ab this a bit before but i fully think that james was a very overprotective ‘mother hen’ type parent. i tend to read his behaviour in lily’s bday letter to sirius as being scared of his child on a broomstick and i fully, fully think he’ll never be able to let go of that as harry grows up. he’ll be anxious and suspicious and paranoid, and his first instant will always be to wrap harry up in cotton wool and hide him away. (i low-key connect this to his childhood as well; going from being spoiled and sheltered to dropped in the middle of a war, black & white thinking, living in extremes etc etc makes it v hard for him to be Normal about his child. as he shouldn’t be, really, but yeah) that’s why he thrives during the initial years; he never minds the hard parts of being a new parent, loves it in fact, and it makes it better that he can keep harry close to him at all times w/o coming off as a helicopter parent (not that the notion bothers him ofc).

it’s good, then, that he has two partners to even the scales, no? i think lily was the most…balanced out of the three. she had a relatively normal childhood, grew up in a working class family/neighbourhood and had to deal w adversity from a young age so she’s developed a nice, thick skin. she also has a sibling with whom she has a v rocky relationship so she knows that kids are, ykno, a bit unhinged. and a little bit of hardship is not a problem. i hc her as needing time to get used to parenthood, unlike james who stepped into it natural as breathing, or even sirius who loved harry on much on first sight that it made up for everything else. ofc lily loved her son, but it didn’t come w the same blinding intensity of her partners and made her feel really shitty in the beginning. but, i think she’d shine during his teen years actually, because she’s not overbearing or intense and becomes the quiet, calm strength that a hormonal, spotty teen boy would probably need.

and sirius <3 our poor baby falls in love with harry, perhaps even more quickly than james, with such startling speed that it shakes his entire foundation. he doesn’t regret it but he’s constantly discombobulated. i also imagine that…it takes him longer to settle into the role of parent, esp bc he’s not biologically one ykno? not like it matters to anyone, ofc, but it takes him a long time to truly accept his authority and place, to believe that he has just as much right as j&l to be there, to parent harry. this has the consequence of him always being more indulgent than the other two; after all, he considered himself a godfather before a parent and a lot of that thinking stayed. he lets harry get away with stuff the others might not (and the little mf figures this out later); some of it also comes from sirius seeing so much shit, and facing so much shit himself, that he rationalises a lot of stuff as ‘well, this isn’t the worst it can be, so what’s the harm’ (because his life has been such a roller coaster that he’s forgotten that not everyone’s like that, if that makes sense?)

its obviously not this clear cut but i imagine harry looks at it like this: if he needs unconditional love, he goes to james; rationality and logic, lily; acceptance and calm, sirius. when someone has to be beat up for hurting harry, james steps in. if he needs help burying a body, it’s sirius. dealing with some asshole boss/teacher/classmate’s mother who’s making harry’s life hell? lily. i can keep going but,,,u get the idea, right? this makes sense, i hope lol

i actually think harry’s first birthday is a great example. sirius pushes the boundaries by gifting lil harry a broom; james loses his mind running after him; lily places an industrial sticking charm on harry’s butt, leans back with a glass of wine, and enjoys the show. even as he grows up, lily and james act as the disciplinarian, and sirius is the emotional outlet. all of them fill in each other’s cracks so well, and it’s only when harry grows up that he realises how effortlessly they worked off each other to parent him.

also oh man o man. harry being cunning is,,,,,see, i’ve not considered it this far but it makes perfect sense. i think canon harry actually had so much manipulative energy and it’s often overlooked for his goofier traits but! this is the same dude who used his dead parents to trick slughorn into revealing sensitive info! imagine if that could be channelled into his jilypad interactions 😈

it’s like, it takes him a bit, because his three parents r so smooth, but once he realises that all of them have certain weak spots, he does NOT hesitate to exploit them. (it has the unintended consequence of truly strengthening the jilypad relationship into an unbreakable one bc one thing their kid taught them is to have ironclad communication going at all times so nothing they’ve said, or not said, is used against them). so like, he knows if he wants to sneak out to a party, it has to be sirius and in a specific way—‘i’ll be totally safe, papa, plus i really wanna see what it’s like and idk when it’ll get a chance to again’. if he widens his eyes to pitiful levels, pouts a little, and blinks faster than usual, then james is putty in his arms as long as he’s separated from the other two. divide and conquer becomes the main tool in harry’s arsenal, actually. lily’s the toughest nut to crack, purely bc she doesn’t run on emotions or irreverence, but harry soon learns that if he comes up with a solid, logical case that proves his argument has unbiased merit then he has a good chance of getting her to say yes. (this is good, bc u can arrange words in the correct order, but u can’t always control emotions)

so overall yeah, you’d think one kid + 3 parents would be an easy bet, but harry keeps them on their toes all the fkn time.

My headcanon is that Nico wasn't born with freckles and moles but he got them later on in life.

Nico got the freckles because of Apollo kissing his face whenever he gets a chance to, so Nico becomes sun kissed.

And Nico gets the moles from Nyx giving him little kisses sometimes when he goes to visit The House

“God is in the neighborhood!”

The miracles you encounter when God is in the neighborhood! This statement means that, God is blessing those who are close to home (YOU). The community is receiving the harvest of seeds that were planted. It is told that when you are in celebration while God is visiting, God is sure to knock on your door! Indicating that as you are in celebration for others and in total praise by the goodness of things around you, your energy is attracting your own goodness and blessings.

“You ready big fella?”

When the community win, we alllll win! Never too short of time will yours be arriving at your door.

From an astrological view: Jupiter is also in the sky right neoww with Sun being in Pisces! Jupiter is allllll about faith, beliefs, expansion, and miraculous blessings. Walking by faith and not by sight is the best way to be during this season while Jupiter is on the throne. Take a look and see where Pisces is in your chart to get a deeper detail of the themes of this season.

So we give thanks for our praising in advance. For our praises place us in alignment of our ire (blessings). It prepares us for the goodness that is arriving. May we continue to be in the spirit of gratitude as the goodness that is promised to us has been received!

-Korede 🦋

This Black Maternal Health Week, we’re bringing awareness to the staggering rates of Black maternal mortality and morbidity across the country.

Black mothers deserve access to the healthcare they need throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum.

The people we elect make decisions that impact our access to reproductive healthcare. Make sure you are registered to vote NOW at weall.vote/register. 💜

My former U.S. Track and Field teammate Tori Bowie, who was found dead in her home in Florida on May 2, of complications related to childbirth at 8 months pregnant, was a beautiful runner. She was effortless. At the Rio Olympics, I ran the second leg of the 4 x 100 relay. Tori was the anchor. When she got the baton, I remember thinking, “it’s over.” She just accelerated. When she crossed the finish line, I couldn’t wait to run over to her to celebrate. It was her first, and only, Olympic gold medal.

She also picked up a silver (in the 100-m) and bronze (200-m) in Brazil. The next year, at the 2017 World Championships in London, Tori won the 100-m title, earning the title of “world’s fastest woman.” Tori started out as a long jumper. So seeing her thrive as a sprinter was a huge deal. She was just such a bright light, and people were getting to see that.

Tori grew up in Mississippi and had this huge Southern accent. She didn’t take herself too seriously. You felt this sense of ease when you were around her. I last saw her in early 2021, in San Diego, where she was training. She gave me the biggest hug; something about her spirit was just very, very sweet. I felt her sweetness come over me that day.

Tori was 32 when she died. According to the autopsy, possible complications contributing to Bowie’s death included respiratory distress and eclampsia—seizures brought on by preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder that can occur during pregnancy. I developed preeclampsia during my pregnancy with my daughter Camryn, who was born in November 2018. The doctors sent me to the hospital, where I would deliver Camryn during an emergency C-section, at 32 weeks. I was unsure if I was going to make it. If I was ever going to hold my precious daughter.

Like so many Black women, I was unaware of the risks I faced while pregnant. According to the CDC, in 2021 the maternal mortality rate for Black women was 2.6 times the rate for white women. About five days before I gave birth to Camryn, I was having Thanksgiving dinner with my family. I mentioned that my feet were swollen. As we went around the table, the women shared their experiences during pregnancy. My cousin said she also had swollen feet. My mom didn’t. Not once did someone say, ‘oh, well, that’s one of the indicators of preeclampsia.’ None of us knew. When I became pregnant, my doctor didn’t sit me down and tell me, ‘these are things that you should look for in your pregnancy, because you are at a greater risk to experience these complications.’

That needs to change, now, especially in light of Tori’s tragic passing. Awareness is huge. Serena Williams had near-death complications during her pregnancy. Beyoncé developed preeclampsia. I hate that it takes Tori’s situation to put this back on the map and to get people to pay attention to it. But oftentimes, we need that wake-up call.

The medical community must do its part. There are so many stories of women dying who haven’t been heard. Doctors really need to hear the pain of Black women.

Luckily, there’s hope on several fronts. Congress has introduced the Momnibus Act, a package of 13 bills crafted to eliminate racial disparities in maternal health and improve outcomes across the board. California passed Momnibus legislation back in 2021. These laws make critical investments in areas like housing, nutrition, and transportation for underserved communities. Further, several pharmaceutical companies are making advances on early detection and treatment of preeclampsia.

Three gold medalists from that 4 x 100 relay team in Rio set out to become mothers. All three of us—all Black women—had serious complications. Tianna Madison has shared that she went into labor at 26 weeks and entered the hospital “with my medical advance directive AND my will.” Tori passed away. We’re dealing with a Black Maternal Health crisis. Here you have three Olympic champions, and we’re still at risk.

I would love to have another child. That’s something that I know for sure. But will I be here to raise that child? That’s a very real concern. And that’s a terrifying thing. This is America, in 2023, and Black women are dying while giving birth. It’s absurd.

I’m hopeful that things can get better. I’m hopeful that Tori, who stood on the podium at Rio, gold around her neck and sweetness in her soul, won’t die in vain.

—as told to Sean Gregory

Call me out next time why don't you lol