Sweet potato pie is delicious. It is diabetes in a pie tin. It is full of sugary goodness and the full texture of sweet potatoes that hang around on your tongue and fill your soul with light.
The texture of sweet potato is stronger than the texture of pumpkin pie, and that’s probably because sweet potato pie had to fight all its life to not be mistaken for it’s lesser companion. Sweet potato pie stands out; pumpkin pie does not.
There are Black women and men everywhere who are known for their sweet potato pies. My cousin Shaun, for instance, makes a bomb sweet potato pie. I also make a great sweet potato pie, and I do mine with a buttery graham cracker crust, and that flavor profile is top notch, baby.
Pumpkin is a lie! Sweet potato is THAT pie.
my writing
Angelica Ross’ experience proves Black women don’t have allies in the workplace
LinkThere are people who would call these “microaggressions,” and I want all of us to stop using that word because it minimizes the impact of these things when they happen, and because they happen so frequently, they are no longer “micro.” They are macro AF.
Angelica is yet another Black woman having to advocate for herself in the workplace because, in the workplace, Black women have no allies.
Everyone wants to smile in our faces and call us “girlfriend” and say things like “Yassssssssssssss” and “You go, girl!” as they snap their fingers and roll their necks in a mockery of our aesthetic, but at the end of the day, when it really matters, they are silent.
Angelica Ross’ experience proves Black women don’t have allies in the workplace
Black women across social media are tired of Tyler Perry’s relationship ‘advice’
LinkIt was this next part that essentially set the internet on fire.
“So, if you can find love, if that man works — you know — at whatever job and is a good man and is good to you and honors the house and honors his wife and does what he can because his gift may not be your gift,” Perry said.
“That is OK,” he continued. “That’s not somebody who’s beneath you; that’s somebody who came to love you at your worth, right? And as long as he’s secure in himself to know that ‘Yep, she makes most of the money; all I can pay is the light bill,’ as long as she’s comfortable enough to say, ‘I’m going to cover the mortgage and all of the other stuff; you handle the light bill, baby. You can take me to dinner every now and then,’ that is fine.”
Black women across social media are tired of Tyler Perry’s relationship ‘advice’
Jann Wenner is an example of why Black media matters
LinkIf we leave it up to white men like Jann Wenner, Black stories won’t ever get told.
Jann Wenner is the Ron DeSantis of music journalism. He would rather erase all the voices that aren’t white and male than admit that anyone else contributed anything to a culture he is directly benefiting from.
Jann Wenner is an example of why Black media matters
White Principal Blames Black Teacher For Assembly That Singled Out Black Students For Low Test Scores
LinkThis is a story about Florida.
I’ve written before about the anti-Blackness being fostered in the Sunshine State; their governor, Ron DeSantis, is leading the charge by legislating anti-Black racism and all other kinds of bigotry in the state.
It is especially egregious when anti-Blackness is targeted at innocent Black children.
Let me explain.
In case you missed it for whatever reason, Bunnell Elementary School in Flagler County, Florida — a school district already notorious for their low test scores — pulled all of its Black fourth and fifth graders into an assembly late last month where they were shown a PowerPoint presentation that blamed them for the school’s low scores on state standardized tests.
The children were told that if they didn’t bring the test scores up, they would likely end up in jail, dead, or shot to death.
Never mind that Black students make up only 14% of the student population at Bunnell. In a school where white students make up 60% of the student body, only 32% of students are meeting or exceeding the required measurements on state assessments. That ain’t the Black kids’ fault.
These details didn’t matter, however, as even Black students who were meeting or exceeding the metrics were pulled into the assembly.
No other students in the school were made to attend such a presentation or spoken to about the low test scores.
It was racist, and it’s OK for us to call it racist. To not acknowledge the inherent racism and implicit bias in this incident is to spit in the faces of the Black children who endured this injustice.
Parents of the Black students said their children were traumatized by the assembly — especially the part where they were told they would be “shot dead” if their scores didn’t improve.
White Principal Blames Black Teacher For Assembly That Singled Out Black Students For Low Test Scores
Black Twitter is up in arms over Delta’s changes to its loyalty program, and it’s hilarious
LinkIn case you missed it, Delta Airlines made drastic changes to both the way you earn points in its loyalty program and who can access its Sky Club airport lounge.
To sum it up, certain American Express Platinum cardholders who enjoyed unlimited access to the airport lounges while flying Delta will now be limited to six visits per year and the co-branded Amex Delta Reserve cardholders will be limited to 10 visits per year. Both sets of cardholders will be able to unlock unlimited access by spending $75,000 on their cards within a single calendar year.
Black Twitter is up in arms over Delta’s changes to its loyalty program, and it’s hilarious
Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it
LinkA police officer who had only been in her presence for 12 seconds shot and killed her.
He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know she was pregnant and due to have a baby girl in two months. He didn’t know she had previously been accused of petty crimes. He didn’t even know if she had actually stolen any liquor.
In the moment he pulled his gun on Ta’Kiya Young while yelling for her to get out of her car, all he knew was she had been accused of stealing from a grocery store, and he decided that was enough to warrant aggressively pulling a gun on her and threatening her life — a life he eventually took.
Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it
Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?
LinkBefore Gauff, the last three American U.S. Open champions were Black women — Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. And now, add Coco Gauff to that list.
Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?
It’s worth noting that the Williams sisters have multiple wins between them in that 20-year span.
People keep mistakenly bringing up Naomi Osaka in this discussion, and I’d like to note that while we also celebrate her Black Girl Magic as well, Naomi plays for Japan when she competes, not the United States, and in this discussion, we are referencing U.S. winners.
It’s safer to be a neo-Nazi in Florida than it is to be Black or LGBTQ+
LinkIn the same press release, which denounced the demonstrations for the bigoted hate parades that they were, the ADL said another demonstration took place later that same day. The two extremist groups involved in that hate gathering were identified as the Goyim Defense League (GDL) and Blood Tribe (BT). The second “demonstration,” which the participants called the “March of the Redshirts,” included 51 people — all of whom were wearing red shirts, black masks and black pants. They carried swastika flags, performed Hitler salutes and yelled things like “white power” and “Jews will not replace us.”
USA Today reports that some of those involved in the demonstrations displayed messaging in support of Ron DeSantis, their resident bigot-in-chief.
Some Florida lawmakers have come out to denounce the demonstrations, but you know who has yet to say anything about them?
Ron DeSantis.
Through his words and legislative actions, DeSantis has created an environment where bigotry feels free to walk proudly in neon clothing out in the open. It doesn’t have to hide under the white hoods and sheets of yesteryear. It can show its face proudly because the highest-ranking member of the state government has given bigots a pass to do what they want.
It’s safer to be a neo-Nazi in Florida than it is to be Black or LGBTQ+
Police shot and killed Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter. Now they’re playing the ‘victim.’
LinkThe police in Blendon Township, Ohio, are already hard at work building a case for victim-blaming and making Ta’Kiya Young responsible for her own death while simultaneously framing the cop who killed her and her unborn daughter as the victim.
Before we even knew the details of what happened during that Aug. 24 shooting and well before the release of police bodycam footage on Friday, the Columbus Dispatch had already given us a synopsis of Ta’Kiya’s life story, including the fact that she was a teenage mother to two sons, 6-year-old Ja’Kobie and 3-year-old Ja’Kenli. At the time she was killed, Ta’Kiya was seven months pregnant with her third child, a girl who was due to be born in November.
The Dispatch made sure to mention Ta’Kiya Young had some minor criminal infractions in her past and that on the day she died, the grandmother who raised her had called the police on her to report her for violating a protection order, and a misdemeanor charge was filed against Ta’Kiya.
None of that matters in the context of the police officer shooting and killing her, but we are being fed this information anyway because whenever a Black person is the victim of an extrajudicial killing by a police officer, there is an immediate rush to dehumanize them and make them less sympathetic in the eyes of the public.
The fact is, the police didn’t know anything about Ta’Kiya Young when they approached her to follow up on an accusation made by a Kroger employee that Young had shoplifted alcohol from the store.
Police shot and killed Ta’Kiya Young and her unborn daughter. Now they’re playing the ‘victim.’
Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America
LinkIn other words, white people love to come around and whitesplain the Black experience to Black people even though they have never been Black a day in their lives, and judging from the way their fragility and thin skin erupt into irrational outbursts on the internet, I’m going to guess they have neither the mental nor the intestinal fortitude to survive even one day in a Black experience.
White people don’t understand the inanity of having your tone policed when you are speaking up for yourselves in a situation when the power dynamic of race comes into play. They don’t understand that in situations like what Coco went through, you have to adapt to the sensitivities of the white person you are addressing even as they are trampling over yours with no regard. They can’t imagine a world where everything you do is viewed through the lens of you being Black and how that lens is clouded with the smudges of implicit bias, systemic racism and white privilege.
In fact, it is white privilege that thrusts them into the position of thinking they can speak with authority and tell us how we are misunderstanding something that happened to us and not them.
Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America
Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried
LinkWhen Gauff drew this to the umpire’s attention, and in a now-viral video, we can see them going back and forth as the umpire tells Gauff that she plays “very quick” while her opponent plays “slow,” and Gauff corrects her and says she plays at a “normal, medium pace.”
Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried
Both the crowd observing the match as well as the ESPN commentators agreed with Gauff, and her statements to the umpire were met with loud applause.
As ESPN reports, the crowd began watching the clock and yelling “timer” every time Siegemund was slow to be ready for the next serve, and when she later had her own exchange with the umpire, the crowd booed her.
In honor of Michael Jackson’s 65th birthday, here are some facts you need to know about him
LinkQuickly and without using Google, tell me who else performed at the Motown 25 celebration that aired on NBC on May 16, 1983.
You can’t, and do you know why you can’t?
You can’t because the only thing anyone remembers is Michael Jackson performing Billie Jean and doing the moonwalk for the first time on national television.
I got chills just typing that.
I was two months shy of my 12th birthday. We were watching that special as a family, and because it was such a big deal, we were watching it on the big floor model television in our sunken living room instead of on the smaller television in the family room where my parents usually made us kids watch TV.
In honor of Michael Jackson’s 65th birthday, here are some facts you need to know about him
Ron DeSantis Makes It OK To Be Anti-Black In Florida
LinkWhite people frequently tell us that we “make everything about race.”
Ron DeSantis Makes It OK To Be Anti-Black In Florida
They use it like some sort of “gotcha!” to derail any type of discussion on race, racism, or racial justice.
Never mind that the entire construct of race was conceptualized by white people in order to make themselves “superior” over everyone else.
They don’t want to talk about that part. Instead, they would rather use a twisted form of DARVO to make a villain out of anyone who brings up racism, white supremacy, white privilege, or whiteness. In their eyes, the problem isn’t racism, white supremacy, white privilege or whiteness; the problem is that we “darkies” won’t stop talking about it.
Their skin is so thin, and their egos are so fragile, that they have to legislate not talking truthfully about race and racism in order to create an environment where whiteness, white supremacy, and racism can exist and thrive unchecked.
On ‘And Just Like That,’ Black and brown characters are little more than props
LinkAs a young writer, I imagined myself as a Black Carrie Bradshaw, and I aspired to live comfortably while only working as a writer and not having to have a day job. I mean, who wouldn’t want a cute apartment in a bustling city, a fabulous wardrobe, an impeccable shoe collection, and a group of amazing and equally successful women who poured into me, listened to me whine about men, and could relate?
The only problem? I didn’t really see a reflection of myself in those characters. Yes, I shared traits with both Carrie, played by Sarah Jessica Parker (writer! clothes lover! shoe collector!), and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), who was sexually liberated and unapologetically herself at all times. But I couldn’t see myself in those women. It wasn’t just that I’m not a prim and proper prude like Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) or an awkward neurotic who is all over the place like Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon). I’m not white.
On ‘And Just Like That,’ Black and brown characters are little more than props
Whiteness does not care about the comfort or education of Black students
LinkLast Friday, the school singled out all of its Black fourth and fifth graders and pulled them into an assembly where they were held responsible for the school’s low test scores.
A PowerPoint presentation, titled “AA Presentation,” was shown to the students. The presentation itself contained typos and errors, and the irony of that is making me constipated because how are you going to create an entire assembly to shame Black children for the failures of the system (of whiteness) when you don’t even have it together enough to proofread said presentation? Y’all are just sloppy all around.
It identified Black students as “the problem” in low test scores because they “have underperform [sic] on standardized assessment for the past three years.” It notes that the school only has 32% of its students who are where they need to be when it should have 41%.
It then tasks the students with committing to getting themselves up to where they need to be on the standardized tests; passing all their curriculum-based assessments with a 75% or higher, and committing to “maintaining high iReady scores within their individual track.”
There were no bullet points in the presentation that detailed how the school was going to help the Black children keep these commitments.
Whiteness does not care about the comfort or education of Black students
Elon Musk wants to remove the ‘block’ button on X, formerly known as Twitter. That would be a huge mistake.
LinkIn May, after I wrote extensively about the Citi Bike Karen incident, I was doxxed repeatedly, and when I reported a few of the accounts on Twitter, I got a response back saying they had found no violation in the person’s tweets.
I’m not the only one.
Black women are targeted for abuse daily on the app as are members of the trans community and the LGBTQIA+ community at large. Racists, Trumpers and everyone in between look for every opportunity to try and make someone else’s day miserable. I spend a lot of time blocking accounts in order to protect my peace.
Marginalized communities already face an onslaught of abuse on Twitter, and with this latest decision, Musk is proving that he doesn’t care.
It is highly likely that his desire to remove the ability to block people is directly tied to people blocking him (it obviously hurts his little feelings that no one cares to read what he has to say) and a large-scale campaign to block Twitter Blue users who pay to have their tweets prioritized over everyone else.
And since the introduction of tweet monetization for that same user base, the rage farming has increased as blue checkmark accounts try to incite people into engaging with their content so that they may suck at the teat that is Twitter’s ad revenue — or so Elon has promised them.
Elon Musk wants to remove the ‘block’ button on X, formerly known as Twitter. That would be a huge mistake.
Edward Blum, the man who targeted affirmative action, says he wants equality, but his actions are anti-Black
LinkIt wasn’t his first time trying this lawsuit. He did it before in 2012 with a white girl, Abigail Fisher, who didn’t get into the University of Texas. That case flopped, and Blum obviously set out to find a more sympathetic face to use for his cause.
Blum was also the architect behind Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court case that essentially dismantled the Voting Rights Act.
Blum recently filed a new lawsuit in Atlanta that targets Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm that provides $20,000 grants to Black women who run businesses.
Edward Blum, the man who targeted affirmative action, says he wants equality, but his actions are anti-Black
Tory Lanez Has Been Convicted And Sentenced, Yet Megan The Stallion Is Still Being Attacked
LinkOne of the biggest lies out there is that Megan reported Tory to the police or pressed charges against him. The narrative is that the fact that this went to trial at all is Megan’s fault, and that is categorically false.
On the night of the shooting, residents in the area called the police when they heard the disturbance happening in and outside of a car Megan was riding in with Tory and others.
When police arrived on scene, Megan did not tell them she had been shot. Instead, she indicated that she had stepped on glass and was taken to the hospital for treatment. Tory Lanez was arrested and given a felony concealed weapon charge. Even after she was treated at the hospital, Megan didn’t tell police Lanez shot her.
When video of the incident began circulating online, Megan clarified that she had in fact been shot, but she still did not say it was Lanez who had done it.
LAPD was initially unable to press charges against Lanez for the shooting because none of the witnesses, including Megan, were cooperating with their investigation.
Tory Lanez Has Been Convicted And Sentenced, Yet Megan The Stallion Is Still Being Attacked
In honor of Whitney Houston’s 60th birthday, here are my favorite Whitney songs
LinkI am a proud member of Generation X, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say Whitney Houston was a prominent voice for our generation ever since the release of her eponymous album in 1985.
I was a few months shy of my 14th birthday when I heard that album, and every song on it was a hit.
You couldn’t attend a graduation in the early ’80s without hearing a class full of children or teenagers singing “Greatest Love of All.” You couldn’t escape her on the radio — not that we wanted to.
Once she came on the scene, she commanded it. She was the gold standard, and everyone who came after was compared to her. She was the voice and the visuals, baby.
Today, Aug. 9, would have been her 60th birthday, and in honor of the occasion, I want to list my favorite Whitney Houston songs.
In honor of Whitney Houston’s 60th birthday, here are my favorite Whitney songs
Black People Have Been Having A Time With The ‘Fade In The Water’
LinkAt the end of it all, multiple people were arrested — including the white men who started it in the first place after they were identified by people in the crowd watching,
Since it was all caught on video, hopefully they won’t escape accountability for their actions.
Because that’s really what all of this boils down to, and that’s what’s really driving the pure joy Black people are experiencing in this moment — accountability.
You see, accountability is like kryptonite to whiteness. Whiteness is quick to deflect when it’s in the wrong, but that same whiteness will demand accountability for Black people at every stop. It’s a weird type of cognitive dissonance none of us have been able to figure out yet.
As Black people, we have to defend our humanity on a daily basis in America. Whiteness is a privilege that is wielded over us heavily on a daily basis in all parts of our lives. Black people can’t eat, sleep, walk down the street, go to the pool, play in the park with their children, or do relatively anything without their words and actions being policed by white people.
And because of whiteness, there are white people who believe they don’t owe any respect to Black people in positions of authority.
Witnessing a group of white people get their comeuppance for disrespecting and physically attacking a Black man who was simply doing his job is the smallest and sweetest of victories, and baby? We will take it.
Black People Have Been Having A Time With The ‘Fade In The Water’
And we’re back!
LinkI was in the ER for hours, and I do mean hours. They ran all types of tests on me and my eyes, and they determined that I had a detached retina. The ophthalmologist who was on call for the ER that evening didn’t think it was a real emergency, and he told them to send me to his office 25 miles away the next day. This annoyed me, and the physician’s assistant in the ER told me he didn’t think it would be a big deal for me to just call the ophthalmologist on the following Monday (which was Juneteenth) and let them know what happened at the ER. He told me to tell them I would need to be seen right away.
And we’re back!
Are you there, menopause? It’s me, Monique.
LinkBefore you all start jumping in my mentions on Twitter, sending me emails, or leaving comments on my personal website with your completely unsolicited advice (in another post, I will explain why y’all need to stop doing that under all circumstances), please know that I have been to the doctor plenty of times to address my period woes.
As a teen, I was placed on birth control pills to regulate my periods. I don’t have fibroids. I just have a very angry uterus that tries to take me down each month.
These days, my periods last four to five days. I bleed heavily, and I clot a lot. The cramps are uncomfortable — especially the dreaded “butt cramp” that I haven’t bothered Googling to find out what it is about, but I know other women experience it because we’ve exchanged stories on Twitter.
I just had a birthday last week, and I can honestly say, I’m ready for my period to go the way of the Dodo.
Being fatigued, cranky, sick to my stomach, crampy, and overall uncomfortable for five days every month is a drag, and I’m completely over it.
In the same way I was wishing for my period to start, I am now wishing for menopause to start so I can be done with this shit.
Are you there, menopause? It’s me, Monique.
Let’s argue: Which fast-food chicken chain has the best fried chicken?
LinkThat man legit rated Popeyes a 7/10 while saying KFC was an 8/10, and I know from personal experience that that is a big ass lie, but I’m not here to yuck anyone else’s yum. We all have different tastes in fried chicken, and we all like our fried chicken in different ways.
As an example, I am a Los Angeles native who currently lives in Los Angeles, and I have eaten fried chicken all over my city. I know people love to come here and go to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles because that’s all people from out of town talk about.
Honestly, Roscoe’s chicken ain’t all that. I am not saying their chicken isn’t good; it definitely is, but the way people be raving about it would have you think there was magic in it, and I can honestly say the deli in the Albertson’s on Crenshaw and 39th seasons its fried chicken way better than that, and it’s a lot cheaper.
Let’s argue: Which fast-food chicken chain has the best fried chicken?
The Carlee Russell situation will not stop me from believing Black women
LinkIf anything, we should be happy that a missing Black woman got the level of national attention that Carlee did, and we should be advocating for that to happen every time a Black woman or girl is missing. Black women and girls do not get the same level of publicity or attention that missing white girls and women do. This is a fact.
According to the National Crime Information Center, 268,884 women went missing in the year 2020, and of those, more than 90,000 were Black women and girls. This means that while Black women represent less than 15% of the entire U.S. population, they made up more than one-third of the women and girls reported missing. And cases involving Black girls and women, on average, stay open four times longer than other cases. Unfortunately, we don’t hear their stories because they don’t get told.
The Carlee Russell story isn’t going to make people stop believing Black women, and it isn’t going to make them stop looking for us. The simple fact is they already don’t believe us, and they already don’t look for us.
The Carlee Russell situation will not stop me from believing Black women
Carlee Russell doesn’t owe us anything
LinkHere is where I inform you that Carlee Russell doesn’t owe anyone anything. She doesn’t have to talk about what happened to the public. The only questions she needs to answer are those from law enforcement investigators working on her case. That’s it, and that’s all.
The internet and social media specifically have put us in a space where people expect instant gratification at every turn.
A woman disappears on Thursday night, returns to her family safely on Saturday night, and by Tuesday, everyone is demanding that the police investigation be wrapped up and a full public disclosure be made about what happened in these last four days.
Except this is not an episode of “Law & Order: SUV.” This is someone’s real life.
Did you pray for her safe return because you actually wanted her to return safely, or did you post your “prayers” to social media for the likes and clout?
Do you actually care about the safety and well-being of Black women, or is Black suffering more your kink?
Carlee Russell doesn’t owe us anything
Keke Palmer and other Black women deserve to express both their sensuality and sexuality unapologetically
LinkDarius Jackson, a no-name negro with no claim to fame other than the fact that he fathered a beautiful child with Keke Palmer, recently became the main character on Black Twitter after he dared to try and publicly shame Keke for an outfit she wore to the Usher residency in Las Vegas.
In a video that was widely shared across the internet, the “Confessions” crooner walked up to Keke and serenaded her. They danced closely together as he sang to her. Keke, who shows no signs of having recently had a baby, looked stunning in a dazzling Black see-through number that put her “cheeks” on full display.
Darius, aka the “breadloser” in Keke’s house, wrapped himself up in a feelings burrito after the video clip of Usher and Keke went viral. In response to a celebrity news social media account posting the video, he wrote through his tears, “It’s the outfit tho…you a mom.”
Keke Palmer and other Black women deserve to express both their sensuality and sexuality unapologetically
In my mind, I know I am a good writer.
Then I read something Christian, or Michael Harriot, or Kirsten West Savali, wrote, and I feel like I am in a writing class with giants as my contemporaries, and I need to spend more time with books and a dictionary and a thesaurus, and I need to fill up one of those Blue Books from college every single day for practice, and even then, I may not be as good as I know I can be.
Writing is both a labor of love and an exercise in self doubt for me.
I’m a fat Black woman with a big mouth, a loud laugh, and the confidence to go along with those things. People try daily, but they are hard pressed to make me feel insecure about myself, my looks, my level of attractiveness, or the like.
But my writing?
Like I said, I know I’m good, but am I *that* good.
My writing is very conversational. I speak plainly so people hear me.
I don’t twist words and phrases into beautiful and intricate knots like Kris does. I don’t weave linguistic tapestries of understanding the way Nakachi does.
I just write it the way I see it in my brain.
I have a loyal audience, and I get a lot of praise, but all the external validation in the world isn’t enough. EYE need to feel like I wrote something good, and I don’t always feel that.
I know I’m not the only writer to experience this, and this is not a plea for praise or a fishing expedition for compliments.
I just read something Kris wrote, and I started thinking about how writers are conjurers. The magic is in the delivery.
So then I started thinking about the kinds of spells I’ve cast and the kinds of spells I want to cast in the future.
And then I started wondering if I really think my magic is all that, and now we are here.
Anyway.
I know I am a good writer. I know a lot of good writers. I’m grateful to be able to look to my contemporaries for inspiration and motivation.
I just want my magic to wow ME, and I don’t think I’m there yet.
Ricky Williams is advocating for mental health in ‘Soul Training’
LinkIn Black and brown communities, there’s a very good reason not to trust mental health practitioners and professionals in the same way that there’s a good reason not to trust the system, so I think we have to start there and acknowledge that most systems have not been for Black and brown people. So if the help is being offered by the same hand that just bit you, you would be foolish to give them your hand and trust them to heal the wound they created.
You want someone who can journey with you into your inner world and be trustworthy enough not to weaponize it against you or use it against you. You want someone who is cultured enough to understand your experience to never project their ideas of the world onto you and allow you to have your own ideas that are rooted in your culture and who you are and the communities you grew up in.
Being vulnerable is a luxury. I’m reminded when I go into environments where survival is life and death on a daily basis that vulnerability is not necessarily a thing that’s going to help you survive; it’s actually a thing that might get you hurt or might get you killed. So when it comes to Black and brown communities, they have been put in a position in society where they constantly have to survive, and this luxury of vulnerability isn’t available to them.
Ricky Williams is advocating for mental health in ‘Soul Training’
a hot link sandwich #4
LinkWhen I tell y’all I was completely humbled and flattered by that, please believe me. Ever since Michael and I started working together in 2017, I have been one of his biggest fans. His writing is brilliant. He is a gifted storyteller and a knowledgeable historian.
I really want to be like him when I grow up, and him liking something I wrote is worth bragging about, so there you have it.
a hot link sandwich #4