If you are giving reparations on Juneteenth, please read this:

I am a Black woman who is actively losing wages due to racism at my job. I have had to go home early more than once due to intense micro-aggressions at my job. Micro-aggressions that were turned into “learning moments” at my expense. And now, I am being attacked because I attempted to put together a Juneteenth newsletter educating my company about the modern day civil rights movement and racism by elevating what few Black voices are in the store. My crime? Asking to hear from Black people on Juneteenth. I was called divisive and combative, and because this vitriol is coming from people in leadership as well, I am being told that this can block my upward movement in this company. Something that has already been made hard enough with the micro-aggressions that I face on a regular basis.

If you’d like to give me reparations, my pay information is below:

Venmo: @nefertarispalace

Cashapp: $astoney2018

modern pop culture was built off of the shattered backs of black and queer people and god hope most of you know that

"Note: 

There may be some resistance & discomfort when I say “we need to dismantle self-care”. The concept is prominent in leftist spaces & hailed as a radical form resistance. However, it is rarely understood in its original context with the necessary caveats which I’ll elaborate on below. It has also been sanitized, manipulated & co-opted for profit. As a result, it’s become bigger than what it was intended to be. People look to self-care now as a revolutionary “solution” to our collective problems (which it is not). Given that we live under capitalist, colonial systems that breed individualism, narcissism & self-centeredness, I think it’s important for us to rethink the utility of this concept today. In this piece, bringing in the knowledge of collectivist, land-based cultures, I’ll explain why it is urgent & critical for us to practice + embody COMMUNITY care which is a more complete framework that creates conditions of liberation needed for us to survive & thrive as we fight for the land & against the ecological destruction of our planet.

So even if you feel some discomfort arise, take a deep breath & hear me out."

- Ayesha Khan, Ph.D

Some quotes to consider:

The most prominent origins of the concept may be traced to Audre Lorde[...] She wrote about how cancer pushed her to realize that we all needed to slow down, pull back from oppressive systems, refuse to operate according to their values or accelerated “productivity” benchmarks when we can & that this divestment from a profit-driven system was critical for us to even begin to think about what collective “health” & healing means. It is an important first step in one’s political radicalization journey. It’s not everything & it wasn’t meant to be.

Self-care today is often reduced to: i) consumption of products, ii) neglect of community & erasure of the contributions of other beings who enable our care, and iii) one-sided, transactional extraction of care with a sense of entitlement to receive care without reciprocity or without focusing on daily practices of giving care in community. What does self-care look like in practice today?

Is there anything you do that doesn’t directly or indirectly involve the contribution of other beings? Even when we rest, there are conditions of some level of safety or security that have to be enabled for us to truly rest. So let’s take a moment to sit with how the beings at the other end of the “care products” we consume are being treated.

On the other hand, what does “self-care” that actively harms the collective look like? Relax at home alone with a sheet mask while ignoring a friend who reached out to connect because “you don’t owe anyone anything”, purchase care products & services from violent corporations killing our planet as a form of “self-love” while deprioritizing community building thinking it will heal you

Mainstream self-care has created NEW forms of oppression, extraction & exploitation. 

The perspectives I offer in my community care work are not MY novel findings but a responsibility I bear as part of my ancestral/ community teachings & traditions. These perspectives are sorely missing in leftist spaces. I write this piece to honor our collectivist traditions & to affirm the many global communities who find the concept of “self-care” reductive, confusing or fundamentally indecipherable. Our cultures are rooted in caring for each other & the land that sustains us all— I’m slowly learning to carry & embody these values by any means necessary.

I was the only Negro passenger on the plane, and I followed everybody else going into the Dobbs House to get lunch. When I got there one of the waiters ushered me back and I thought they were giving me a very nice comfortable seat with everybody else and I discovered they were leading me to a compartment in the back. And this compartment was around you, you were completely closed in, cut off from everybody else, so I immediately said that I couldn’t afford to eat there. I went on back and took a seat out in the main dining room with everybody else and I waited there, and nobody served me. I waited a long time, everybody else was being served. So finally I asked for the manager and he came out and started talking, and I told him the situation and he talked in very sympathetic terms. And I never will forget what he said to me.

He said, “Now Reverend, this is the law; this is the state law and the city ordinance and we have to do it. We can’t serve you out here but now everything is the same. Everything is equal back there; you will get the same food; you will be served out of the same dishes and everything else; you will get the same service as everybody out here.”

And I looked at him and started wondering if he really believed that. And I started talking with him. I said, “I don’t see how I can get the same service. Number one, I confront aesthetic inequality. I can’t see all these beautiful pictures that you have around the walls here. We don’t have them back there. But not only that, I just don’t like sitting back there and it does something to me. It makes me almost angry. I know that I shouldn’t get angry. I know that I shouldn’t become bitter, but when you put me back there something happens to my soul, so that I confront inequality in the sense that I have a greater potential for the accumulation of bitterness because you put me back there. And then not only that, I met a young man from Mobile who was my seat mate, a white fellow from Mobile, Alabama, and we were discussing some very interesting things. And when we got in the dining room, if we followed what you’re saying, we would have to be separated. And this means that I can’t communicate with this young man. I am completely cut off from communication. So I confront inequality on three levels: I confront aesthetic inequality; I confront inequality in the sense of a greater potential for the accumulation of bitterness; and I confront inequality in the sense that I can’t communicate with the person who was my seat mate.”

And I came to see what the Supreme Court meant when they came out saying that separate facilities are inherently unequal. There is no such thing as separate but equal.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

THE PEOPLE COULD FLY: AMERICAN BLACK FOLKTALES told by Virginia Hamilton. (New York: Knopf, 1985). Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon.

source

The Muses!!! (Disney's Hercules)😁

Their voices are iconic! 😁🥰 They killed this. 👏🏾

Why we haven't had a Disney's "Hercules" musical to the stage after all these years is beyond me 🤦🏾‍♀️

Hmm.... Hercules is cute too 😍

Women, Men - the Blues and Music.

Happy Black History Month 2024

Today it's all about Black Women and Men singing about the blues and life in america

not all of it is blues, but it is a Black woman's voice which needs to be amplified. Enjoy fifty beautiful voices.

We blog for you this month, So please share and enjoy

Black Voices & New Black Voices These are 2 of 12 vintage paperback classics that comprise our current giveaw@y.

Read

I ask certain question’s in conversations with other people that most of the time I already know the answer to. Even if it sounds redundant or trivial, I do it. I do it because I enjoy people. I love when someone gets the opportunity to talk about themselves. The way they light up, you can almost see the appreciation that you even asked. The gratitude in the fact that someone cares to ask them something, not matter how simple of a question. I love it.

What’s crazy is I used to beat myself up about it. It’d go something like this- “Why would you ask a question that you clearly already know the answer to? Why dumb yourself down like that? What’s so wrong with allowing people how much you know? Is it a confidence issue? If you don’t correct it soon, people are going to seriously think that you’re not the sharpest screw in the toolshed.”

But something happened recently. I’ve begun to appreciate my kindness toward others, in the way that I present it and the intention behind it. I don’t have to resent my need to be kind to others if I know my intention behind it was pure. 

I only begin to resent the urge to be kind when I have dishonest intentions behind it. When I’m kind to manipulate, persuade, and get what I want from someone, It’s hurtful to my spirit. But, If I know I’m coming from a good place, I’ve practiced the action of not criticizing myself, but loving this side of me.

I am proud for recognizing this and correcting it.

Happy birthday, Niecy Nash! We love you and all your #BiWifeEnergy. Hope today's a party! 🎉

"We should all speak like sirens. Use our voices to make a difference, because all of them matter.”

On this election day, there are lots of forces at work to keep Black people from getting to the polls. Or, if we do cast a vote, to keep that vote from being counted. Let's not make it easy. Turn up at the polls and bring a friend (or two or three).  

VOTE! #Election2022 

Voting While Black: https://bit.ly/LWBlack

i have been particularly absent from this blog and all of my socials for the past month because i’m positive i’m going to die at the hands of medical racism and malpractice as well as gaslighting from family. i fell pregnant unexpectedly which on one part is my fault but the complications i’m facing this early on are killing me. i’m 6 weeks and a few days and this is not regular morning sickness like i’ve heard of. yes morning sickness has varying degrees of severity. but i have been unable to hold food or liquids down for almost two weeks without immediately regurgitating them. i threw up stomach acid and bile multiple times during the day and night. i’ve lost almost twenty pounds. i’ve been to multiple hospitals in my area. the doctors have just laughed in my face and told me to go home basically. to rest and try to eat crackers. but honestly, what the fuck are saltines going to do for me when i can’t even stomach them?

i live in the southern united states. abortion is completely banned in my state. i have preexisting health conditions that are making this harder on me physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. i was already pro choice/pro abortion. getting one is a last resort but i have never felt so ashamed and alone by almost everyone around me for wanting to preserve my own life over the parasite living in me currently. i almost relapsed last night wanting to feel something other than the lump in my throat and the dizziness i feel when i stand up.

to anyone who supported overturning roe v. wade, fuck you. as a black femme person, i have enough on my plate daily. this overturn is killing black and brown people disproportionately and you do not care. you do not give a singular fuck about people who aren’t cisgender, rich, straight, male, and white. this is not about me not wanting to be a parent. this is about my health, my life. how do you expect me to bring life into this fucked up world when it’s taking mine away?

the past year i have lost so much, but i’d rather live with the grief of an abortion than let another child be in the hands of the system. i’d rather live with myself and that decision than die at the hands of medical racism. i’d rather go through obstacles to take matters into my own hands, than die. and i could die from that as well. this isn’t about responsibility issues.

and to use religion to enforce this upon people, fuck you. if you abide by the bible, wonderful. that’s the religion and doctrine you chose to follow, not me. that religion’s done more harm to me internally than good. it’s abhorrent how black and brown people have constantly fought for reproductive rights for decades just to be handed dust. this country genuinely hates its people. the people hate their own people. i could speak this til i give myself an asthma attack, but who will truly listen?

I've been stuck on Harold Green III's Black Roses for a hot lil minute. I truly loved how he told their stories and uplifted each and every woman he spoke on. It was so warm and loving. So...I did a read of how Kimberly Drew's ode sounded in my head and I hope y'all enjoy my reading. **sidenote see if you can find where I goofed in the track**

Kimberly's Cool (Ode To Kimberly Drew) by Harold Green III

Wayfinder. Doormaker. Eyeopener. Receiptbuilder.

You are a compound word- an amalgamation of curation.

This Is What I Know About Art:

You are making Black a primary color, and your blends know no end.

You are teaching perception how to bend.

You show past and present how to be flexible and make way for Black Futures.

Art is fashion, which means- you are a portable exhibition.

Art is essential- like breathing, or vision. We see what you see.

Art is for the living. It helps us understand our existence. There is an art to comprehension.

You turned equity into an art form and made it exquisite.

You put it on display for all to see. Met us where we were and invited us up- how hospitable.

You made the hidden visible. Look at the picture you paint.

Everyone, look at what Kimberly drew- a collage of self-portraits for us all to view.

“It must be remembered that genuine peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.” — Martin Luther King Jr.