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Justice Most Popular

Don’t Keep That Same Energy. Get New Energy.

Stanford University recently released the results of a project studying police stops in 29 municipalities. The results reflected what most black and brown people knew instinctively; we are disproportionately targeted by the police.

This week we also saw the arrest of several prominent people, accused in a ring of bribery with the sole goal of obtaining admission to college for their children. The case involved falsifying transcripts, faking extracurricular activities, and cheating on SAT exams. Lots of people are caught up in this one. Most of them are white.

Here is the deal. We get stopped more often. Detained more often. Ticketed and arrested more often. Charged with more shit. We get more time for most offenses. We are more likely to bear the presumption of guilt until proven innocent. And the limited fiscal resources in our communities compound the issues we face when we are released or vindicated. That’s just in the criminal system.

For those of us below the poverty line, we are the reason for welfare reform despite the fact that the majority of the recipients are white. Somehow we are the face of the minute percentage of welfare fraud. Property values in our communities were legally suppressed through redlining, and have remained well below that of white communities since the process was outlawed. This devaluing of our property contributes the lower tax base that supports our schools with less money. In schools we are “disciplined” at 3 times the rate of our white counterparts. The measure of academic success is still based heavily on performance on biased standardized tests, resulting in larger achievement gaps that appear to prove that we are less than.

PWIs are the equivalent of another planet for many of our best students, resulting in unnecessary adversity due to the near universal requirement that we assimilate and become other to fit in. The speech, gait, and flavor of our youth is unacceptable inside the hallowed halls of higher education, unless we’ve got a ball or a microphone in our hand. Either that or you’re just an affirmative action admission, somehow making you less than.  Our safety is not guaranteed in towns that surround the campuses. They aren’t used to seeing people like us.

Maybe an HBCU is our choice to avoid the cultural insensitivity and blatant erasure. The struggles HBCUs exist in the form of underfunded programs and fewer resources compared to PWIs with those massive endowments. At least we are safe and nurtured and encouraged to be outstanding.

In our careers, we work three times as hard to get anywhere, and we are still perceived as other when we get there. Our seat in the room or at the table is constantly questioned. We are devalued and often relegated to diversity hires, as if being diverse is a bad thing and means you’d otherwise not measure up.

My point? When white people find themselves afoul of the law or using the system they created in the manner they intended and finding disdain in the public eye, I don’t want them to get the same treatment we get. I don’t want their sentences longer or fines bigger. I don’t want them to feel smaller or less than because of their color or background. I don’t wish our experience on anyone else.

I want compassion for everyone. I want reasonable penalties for wrong doing. I want real second chances without consequences that change the course of a lifetime. I want the misdeeds of one person to not continue to negatively impact generations over and over again. I want the opportunity of redemption for people who look like me. I’d prefer that we stop over accusing and penalizing any one. I want the playing field leveled, but at the level that is historically reserved for white people.

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Editor's Picks Spirit

Brush Your Shoulders Off

This is a great reminder for me. I know there are people who are on the cusp of doing something different and new and this will tip them over.

We come here free of baggage. Maybe there is truth to heredity of pain, or cellular imprints of trauma. It’s possible. But I know, most of my own baggage was learned in childhood. I learned that I can’t always trust someone’s I love you. I learned to expect struggle and difficulty. Don’t be too happy because the other shoe will drop. Life is hard and unfair. If you’re not busy you’re lazy. If you’re not tired all the time you’re doing something wrong. Life’s a bitch and then you die.

Of course my parents didn’t intend to teach me these things. But we learn by more than instruction, we learn by watching and hearing. We learn by example.

As an adult I’m doing something else. I’m reprogramming my brain. It’s ongoing work. I think about my goals and look closely at the beliefs that aren’t serving me. I have mantras I repeat to myself when the old conditioned beliefs pop up. When I encounter situations that appear to prove that old conditioning, I ask myself questions before I react. Usually I find the conditioning is faulty.

The hardest part of this work has been letting go. Letting go of beliefs that don’t work for me. Letting go of behavior that got me the opposite of what I wanted. Letting go of expectations of others and conditioned expectations of myself. Forgiving people who hurt me. Letting go of all that and just fucking breathing!

My teacher Sarah said something this morning that I know is true. People are just doing the best they know how. This thought helps me let go. Sometimes our best is harmful to others, or perpetuates a cycle of trauma. Sometimes our best means we are mediocre today. People are shitty and it usually has nothing to do with me. It’s not personal. When someone’s best isn’t good enough for me, I govern myself accordingly. I remove myself and move on with my life. I do not carry their shit. I let it go. Now that I know I have a choice, I choose my own joy and freedom.

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Life

I Am Here

My kids are still dependent. I am tired. Of being the second brain for everyone in my family. Of figuring out their shit and my own. Of constant responsibility. I think I resent the need to also think about money and jobs, etc. I guess some moms hate that too, when they are completely taken care of financially and the kids are their full time job. When you are putting everyone ahead of yourself, all the time, it can be frustrating.

But they are on time. They are where they should be. Like little baby giraffes starting to walk. Taking steps and stumbling here and there. And I’m the mama giraffe – standing and supporting, backing them up where needed.

I actually love playing this role in their life. I love supporting them as they grow. I have to remind myself of this every I’m tempted to dwell on how exhausting this phase of life is. Then I do something for myself, all by myself. To remind me that I’m still me.

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Spirit

There are no others.

My friend and teacher @sarahkyoga posted this on her @omm_oxygenmaskmeditation page dedicated to helping parents of kids with special needs. I read this and I know that it is true. But I’ve been vacillating between truths lately.

On one hand, I know we are all connected, all beings chilling on this big ball in space in this moment and time. This is true.

On the other hand, I have never been more directly faced with my “otherness” in my life. I am a black woman in America. Unapologetically. In my lifetime, it’s never been more clear that this is not okay for a bunch of folk.

I see it in the rigged elections and drastically disparate criminal verdicts. It’s obvious in maternal mortality rates and differing standards for everything from property values to hair styles in dress codes. This is true too.

The second truth makes me want to flip a bird to all the folk who haven’t been vetted by my allies. This inclination has been getting stronger and stronger. But the first truth continues to stand. Continues to open my heart and my empathy to all of us. Demands more of me.

Both of these things are true. But only one of them is right. I have to choose what is right, second by second. I needed this reminder today.

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Justice Most Popular

Get Up Stand Up

We need SERIOUS reform in police training and procedures AND we need people of privilege to stand up for others who cannot. I recently read this excerpt from Dr. King’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail for #Thing1’s homework, and it completely reinforced my opinion that there is a need for people who are willing to make life uncomfortable for anyone who would stand by and do nothing while this child is brutalized. As well as punish anyone doing the brutalizing.

The excerpt that touched me most is below. But please read the essay in its entirety at The King Center Website.

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

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Justice

I Been Thinking, I Been Thinking

Sexual Assault is about power. Historically, seeking political office has also been about power. Sometimes, the person seeking that power is doing so on behalf of the people in their community. To wield it on behalf of the least of us. But more often than not it is sought for the purpose of increasing and retaining power for those that already have it. We will be hard pressed to find men who seek public office that haven’t been inappropriate with women at some point in their past. Not because there aren’t good men out there. But because most good men aren’t seeking that kind of power. Those running for altruistic reasons that are above reproach, are few and far between. For now.

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Spirit

Thought Life

I remember Oprah quoting Maya Angelou saying (paraphrased here), when people show you who they are believe them. The reverse of that is also true… people see you based on your actions, not your intent or how you hope to be. Your actions stem from your thinking! Fixing my thoughts today.

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Justice

Get It Together

I’m so over our government right now. Both sides fighting like dogs and most of America has checked out. I can make it simple for our leaders. All of us are worried about how much government is spending, all of us want to be able to make a living and support our families. All of us want affordable healthcare and most of us want to be able to help people when they really need it. Most of us realize if you defund the pork and the bs projects, we could afford to do what matters. Now start from where we agree and get to work!

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Spirit

God Gave Me You

God is everywhere all the time. I love heaven meets earth moments and I have been blessed with a few this weekend. Confirmation of my vision – after discussing using art to help youth Twice Saturday, an art therapist walks into Decatur ArtHouse just to see what we are and what we do. Really? Then this a.m. I get an organic opportunity to discuss an area of concern I have had for my baby boy. He wants to be famous like Muhammad Ali. And after watching the recap of Common and John Legend with him, I got to explain that God gives that kind of platform to folks to bring change to the world, not just to line their pockets or buy 10 cars or have an entourage. So he has to stay focused on doing God’s will and avoid falling for the adulation of people. Cause people are fickle and unreliable and love to celebrate you as much as they love to see you fall. I knew he understood when he said, “Like Justin Beiber?” Yes son, just like that.

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Justice

70+%???!?!?!?!??!?!

Luuuuuuuccyyyyyyyyy, you got some splainin to doooooooo!

What the ever loving hell is going on with white women?
First let me say, I’m pretty sure I’m friends with the whole 26% that voted for Abrams.

But for those of us that live in Decatur, friends, we have our answers.

Who is blankly staring at us during the conversations about equity. Whose kids are forming a secret right wing society? Whose kids were wearing maga paraphernalia at Renfroe last year? And who could be worried about having the kids read “The Hate You Give”? Now we know!!!! It’s those kids… and this is their mamas doing the most! ???

No seriously, ppl can vote how they want. But y’all got some work to do with your sisters and friends at what not.