POC/ J. Cole and Lin Manuel

Being a woman of color and a black woman is not synonymous.
In life, we all go through shit, and the shit doesn't necessarily have to be measured and judged through the oppression Olympics....but to be clear, being a woman of color and being Black is not always the same.

If women of color dip into the oppression, the opportunity gaps, the standards of desirability, the form of sexism only felt by women of color, and the silencing; then they too must commit to uplifting Black women.

But that is not always, or usually the case. The solidarity that is only showcased when convenient and beneficial is problematic.

Being bi-racial certainly has its own shit but I know that not being perceived as "Black" to white folks and even Asian folks has its own undeniable privilege. And the first step is to acknowledge that. While it's lovely to think of working together, we first need to acknowledge our stories and where we come from.

Asian women do a lot of harm to black women, through colorism, through negative judgements, through standards of desirability through respectability politics, through body politics.

Light-skin women of color do a lot of harm to black women as well.

So I try to be cognizant when using those terms
because I am unapologetically both,
and being a woman of color in this country is not easy in itself,
but I also know that they way I present to the world and the way I walk through the world should not afford me to co-opt the struggle that some black women endure.

Food for thought for some bi-racial women and non-black women of color.

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Now, J. Cole lyrics because everyone needs some....

"I’m lovin’ your light, vulnerable
Lettin’ your guard down, it’s honorable
‘Specially when the past ain’t been that friendly to you
But there’s magic in that
You’re the flower that I gotta protect
And keep alive in the winter time
Hey, don’t you die yet
You been way more than a friend of mine
We’re more like fam
I raised you, you raised me, let’s turn this whole life ’round
You can confide in me
I can take the weight up off your shoulder blades
And try to store the pain inside of me
And why the world do you like that
Like they don’t know you God-sent
But me, I view you like that
I’m sneakin’ glances
Thankin’ God that he drew you like that
Beautiful black child
Come and shed your black cloud
For your vibe and your smile
I don’t mind a lil’ rain
I’m your dog
Ears perk up at the sound of your name
Count on your main, wildfire
Can’t handle your flame
Download your shame, wild high, come drown in your fragrance
You that red pill that a nigga found in the Matrix
Before I had you this shit was fantasy
You plant a seed to grow some roots, a branch and leaves
Becomes a tree of life until our nights are filled
With peace from stress and strife
And that’s the blessing that I get from wifing you
‘Cause you entrusted me with the key to your heart
Beaten you smart
‘Cause even though I need a new start
Due to my past transgressions, you believed in me
I guess the light I see in you is what you see in me, lord" -J. Cole "Pretty Little Fears" 


Lin Manuel says...

"Gmorning, love,
Your best impulse, the selfless impulse, let
it take the wheel.
Let it drive you toward the person you
dreamed to be." 

Therapy

Therapy is not magic.

But it does remind you to be a little gentler in your delivery of your judgement against your mom and your culture.
It reminds you that you do not feel the guilt of escaping war and poverty the way she did and you do not feel the guilt of leaving relatives behind. You think the guilt is dangerous and makes little sense but what you think and what she feels may be equally valid and that's frustrating for you
because she is your mother
and she deserves to lose the burden.

Therapy reminds you to be brave even though it doesn't take you completely there. You have to do that. But at least it reminds you that you can. Being brave is hard. Letting go is hard. You've done it a ton but it never gets easier... letting go of a person.

Therapy is a love letter to yourself.

You've been thinking about giving out love a lot.
Giving it out freely because it's bottled up and all you want to do is love. The purpose of your life is love.
You think about what would it be like to be a mom? What is it like to be a good spouse or a good friend? What it would be like to love seamlessly and easily?

And how do you entwine that with a career and a neighborhood that enriches the spirit rather than depletes it completely? Beyonce says everything is love, right? But you feel unheard.

-----
I have this running joke inside my head
that
I don't call my family
because I don't get calls from romantic partners
so somehow I take it out on my grandma
who just wants to check in on her grandkid

I think I take it out on her when
I'm catching people who are not quite at their prime yet
and who I help build
only to have them blossom elsewhere
Recognition and apology or not.... it happens a lot.

--
So that's why you do therapy and meditation and running and writing as love letters

It reminds you that you're complicated and you're nuanced and it's good that you feel. When you were younger you avoided it, afraid that it would make you prey to vultures who can detect weakness. But when you're older, you realize that they prey on you, attach to you, because that sensibility is what that seek in themselves.

You want more. You pray that it would come. You speak it into existence.
But you are not patient.

Thus therapy.

"Teach me to be like you so I can not give a fuck" - Cardi B

30

“When someone shows you who he is, believe him.”

February 18th- Writing at night in a cafe

I am less than 4 months away from 30. Thirty, the pinnacle of adulthood, of figuring things out, of beauty, of confidence.

My upper 20s have been good to me, because like many, my early 20s weren't.

Asking for things and having needs felt neurotic and shameful.
There was a lot of growing up that had to be done during those formative years and a lot of that had to do with saying, "no, you can't shame me and put me down so that you can have power. Or no, I'm not here to make you feel bigger at my own expense." The upper 20s were about learning how to smell that from 1000 miles away.

I found my standards for what I expect out of my education.
I found my passion for girls of color and for social justice.
I found my standards for how I would allow others to treat me.
And most vitally, I found my standards for how men would and would not treat me. And I've held tight to what I know is right, knowing fair-well that men, and particularly men of color, are accustomed to making the excuses for why they act the way they do towards women... of color. They expect us to take the punishment. At one point, after college, after 25, I said "nahhh, I'm good."
---

"Guess I went ahead and jumped the gun again. It's a shitty situation that I put you in." - X-Ambassadors.

People do what they want. You can't coerce them. You can't baby them. And if they don't act the right way, it is a choice that they make purposefully....

is what I believe. It's what I know in each fiber of my being to be true. And it's what my grandmothers and great-grandmothers also know and have passed on to me in my DNA. I did a lot of pulling teeth and forgiving when I was younger, until I almost stopped being kind to me.

More and more, it's been no nonsense. Because my life is not something to pour nonsense into. And I don't want to be a "strong woman." I don't want to be a "ride or die." I want to be valued and respected.

Yet, the other side of the coin that has me questioning is a thing called
softness... and its sister, human-ness.

 I wonder if I have completely lost track of some of that when it comes to interacting with those who harm me. Or who pose a threat. Because of human nature and human pain, those things are so omnipresent and cyclical.
--

As I've written one billion times prior, I want things to come with genuine ease... with near childhood joy and excitement... with no scars of jadedness that I (us women of color) then have to absorb... irregardless of the spears that have been thrown at "our men" 

I want transparency. I don't want to be put in a position where I have to forgive.

Thirty excites me. I think about raising young boys in this world who can grow into transparent, loving men, who strengthen the foundations that women lay.

I think about my voice and what I no longer silence. I think about my grandmothers every day, and the DNA they pass through me. And I think about how blessed I am for each moment and each day. And it's beautiful.

And I think about sharing that and inviting that into my world AND being strong enough to trust the process, whether the ancestors say hold tight to your heart and expect others to do right by you or they choose to say, let out a little forgiveness, cross an ocean for the other.

If nothing else, you can say you've crossed an ocean.

The question is, do you let the waves that splash on your face heal you or scar you. What does it mean to be worthy?

"In case my lack of reply had you catching them feelings,
Know you've been on my mind like Kaepernick kneeling
Or police killings
Or Trump saying slick shit
Manipulating poor white folks because they ignite
Blind to the struggle of the ones that got the pigment
Lately I've been stressing 'cause it seems so malignent
I need to feel your essence in my presence if you're with
I guarantee you won't regret you did it" -J Cole- "Come through and Chill" remix

Josh and Grandma

I blink and I'm 29 1/2, almost 30, how did that happen, right?

Just today, I went back and read some notes from Josh when he checked in on me four years ago. This was after he put me through a copious amount of pain when I was 16. It reminded me that after years had passed, he was sorry. It reminded me that there was an imprint that he couldn't recognize in his teens and early 20s. Not so much when I had hoped for the imprint to take place. It didn't ease the trauma but it eventually came about.

It was a weird way of the world protecting me from my teenage self.

I think about my mom's mother now in the same way. I was the world to her yet to me, she was a world away. She was memories and I was privilege and we didn't connect, even though, I was the first grandchild that she knew and so potential in. I should have taken more phone calls in my awkward teenage stage. As a woman, I now think about her strength, which flows through my mother, and through my very own DNA.

Those boys.
They weren't bad boys, just boys who were missing a lot and hurting a lot, and seek to make themselves full by taking pieces from girls. And it's only years after that they come to their Jay-Z, reconciliation, moment.

The rejection of those traditions.
Because we want to be our own selves and we want to forge forward, even when we might not know what that is.

I hope that Josh is well and I hope that my grandmother is resting in peace.

I should write more. Happy New Year.