“Black Folks Get Off Your Knees and Stop Praying “

This video gave me life! To see this woman interrupting the same old media B.S. was everything.  Then for her to shout “Black Folks Get Off Your Knees and Stop Praying”… my soul said “YESSSSSSS!”.

My heart has been heavy for the families in the ‪#‎CharlestonMassacre‬. Its so sad and horrible to have to admit that this is not the first time we have been violated in religious spaces. The familiarity of these violent tactics and all the media spin towards flags doesn’t diminish the impact of the lost of more black bodies to white supremacy in America for me. In the wake of the #CharlestonMassacre there’s also been a lot of church talk going around. People are calling black folks out for praying to white Jesus and forgiving white people. The role of christianity, blackness, and social justice is one I am constantly wrestling with and I look forward to serious critiques of their relationships becoming more of a priority in black political spaces.

I was a teenage preacher and devout evangelical. I preached my first sermon at 17, graduated from Gary Whetstone School of Biblical Studies and Messiah College all initially with the hopes of leading some sort of christian ministry one day. It was my time trying to practice Christianity living, studying, and working with white Christians coupled with my family’s religiously rooted struggles with my gender and sexuality that ultimately pushed me away from the church. It has been my on going study of the bible, Black History, white supremacy, and various forms of spirituality and religion which makes it impossible for me to ever be involved again as I was just 10 short years ago.

Ultimately my thoughts on Christianity are very similar to my thoughts on the nature of oppression in general. My thoughts and relationship to the black church in particular are a little more complex because I experienced a lot of love in those walls and a lot of people I love still hold on to christianity so dearly. Even with the historical and personal knowledge of how well my people have used the church as a tool of affirmation and survival, I still deeply believe the black church is more harmful, to black people’s psyches’ and the overall journey to black liberation, than helpful. So below I’m reposting a piece from the Spring I wrote wrestling with this same topic. ‪

https://dirtyartboi.wordpress.com/2015/03/09/no-more-pastors/

Flag Wars

Welcome to Flag Wars.  In this week’s installment of avoiding white supremacy and your growing sense of powerlessness in the face of increased visibility of state violence and the long standing war against black bodies, (you know that war the American Government and their “average” citizens refuse to name), the confederate flag is the hot topic.

Don’t come for the confederate flag if you’re not ready to come for the American flag. They are different versions of the same Red, White, and Blue. With the latter being the bloodier of the two. Fuck symbolism bang on the system! My flag (if thats what your’re into) is Red, Black, and Green. Can we talk about why more black people don’t  know and defend the meaning of the Red, Black, and Green?  Can we talk about the relevancy of flags to black liberation?   #dirtyartboi #RBG #Reframe4Freedom #flag

*The Pan-African flag, also referred to as the UNIA flag, Afro-American flag or Black Liberation Flag, is a tri-color flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands colored red, black and green. The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA) formally adopted it on August 13, 1920 in Article 39 of the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World,ring its month-long convention held at Madison Square Garden in New York City, United States. Variations of the flag can and have been used in various countries and territories in Africa and the Americas to represent Pan-Africanist ideology. Various Pan-African organizations and movements also often employ the flag’s colours for their activities.

The three Pan-African colors on the flag represent:

• red: the blood that unites all people of Black African ancestry, and shed for liberation;
• black: black people whose existence as a nation, though not a nation-state, is affirmed by the existence of the flag; and
• green: the abundant natural wealth of Africa.

*http://www.theunia-acl.com/index.php/history-red-black-green

Reframe4Freedom We don’t need em’

Enough With Rachel Fake Her Face Already

I was hoping this topic would pass but the media wont let it go and since people keep spitting all kinds of embarrassing, outrageous, and disrespectful commentary, I decided to share some thoughts on this Rachel Dolezal debacle.

 

All you color struck negroes sit down and stop allowing your triggers to be used against you. Its so sad how many black people are using Rachel fake her face’s lies and attempts at passing as an excuse to work out their issues with their  internalized colorism, ignorance, and  insecurities with racial identity. We all wrestle with internalized racism but we have worked too hard as whole to fail this political moment. Let us remember that the media often functions as the government’s propaganda machine.  Can we just admit that this Rachel Fake her face media circus is being used to distract us? Don’t even get me started on these neo intellectuals’ ignorant attempts at making correlations between the transgender experience and racial identity.  It is a dishonor to both transgender people as well as black people.  It makes me so angry all these idiots comparing the transgender experience to a white woman lying for years about who she is and appropriating and performing blackness for her own benefit.  Its interesting who we are quick to condemn and who we are quick to reserve the benefit of the doubt for.  By giving her so much attention society is indirectly approving a white person’s ability to name what black is and what black aint. This is some new age foolishness wrapped in old tactics.

A white woman, better yet no white person, because of the nature of white supremacy, can define the black experience. This isn’t about an individual’s a sense of self or an affinity for a particular culture. This is politics. This is about having the audacity, power, and privilege to take up space and resources in someone else’s name. This is about the ability to be caught lying and deceiving multiple people, institutions, and employers and having society rush to justify and make excuses for you.

No white person, no matter who they marry or give birth too, because of the nature of white supremacy, can define the black experience.  Black is a political, spiritual and culturally multilayered phenomena driven by the children of the African Diaspora. Black is shaped by as much beauty as it is shaped by trauma and oppression. Black is often too complex to fit into words but what black aint is a thing for white people to define and profit from without consequence. Nor is it a scapegoat for your ignorance and transphobia just because the last big story was about a rich white trans woman.Isn’t it ironic that just when  the global conversation about America and its so called justice system or corrupt system of policing is so focused on the black experience, here comes Rachel fake her face.  Why now? Why during Black Spring are we swept up in a media frenzy dedicated to allowing a decade long liar and thief to justify her crimes and define blackness at the same time?

Please don’t fall for these old political tactics.  Please stop with your quest to find logical explanations for her behavior subsequently creating platforms for the benefactors of our oppression to frame political conversations and define the black experience. More importantly please ask better questions.

How can you say you love being black and allow this person to exploit the aesthetic and experience of black women in particular?

Where is the outrage?

Why is she getting so much air time?

Why are we surprised to see the beast of whiteness do what scholars and activists have been telling us for years is at the heart of racism and white supremacy?

Why is she still profiting from us with interviews and media attention?

We are screaming Black Lives Matter and here she comes claiming she, a white woman, has a affinity for the culture and is therefore black.  This is a slippery slope that can be used politically to squash black political thought, organizing, culture, and so much so many other things  our people died and continue to sacrifice to transform and build towards our liberation daily.

We are all sick.  Yes racism is a sickness. Today our sickness has us so far out of our minds that we are tolerating and elevating Rachel Fake her face’s mess and our ancestors have to be turning over in their graves with disappointment at us. I am sad to say , even with all the writing, research, struggle, and healing that has helped us to survive America thus far, today we are failing them. Its embarrassing that with all the work those before us have done to articulate the black experience in political contexts that support our beauty and liberation, that in 2015 we are still so easily swayed by this “transracial”crap.  It’s a sad moment in black political thought to hear black people defend, justify, and not take to task  Rachel Fake her face. At the end of the day its not just about  the actions of Fake her Face. She is shady and she is small.  She is just another white person doing what whiteness is designed to do.

On a societal level this is about the political implications of how we are reacting to her actions. She is small but the media is big and this is about how the media is using her story to lead us down the same whack slippery slope those claiming we are in a post racial society want to take us. They are happy to steer us down the road where whiteness and those benefiting from oppression aren’t held accountable for the the impact of their actions.  We are just suppose to over intellectualize and debate the issues away while Fake her Face leads the parade back down the slope where black lives don’t matter. The media’s treatment of Rachel Fake her face reassures people that no matter how many black presidents, mayors, athletes, entertainers,  no matter how many funerals, weeping black mothers,rebellions, uprisings, protests, and videos of state violence against our people we see…

Black lives and culture are still just objects to be bought, sold, destroyed, appropriated and performed at white peoples discretion with little to no consequences.

#askRachel #FakeHerFace #postracial  #dirtyartboi #blackis #blackaint #politics #blacklivesmatter

Miss Me with the C. Jenner B.S.

These visibility politics are making me sick. Yall love they standard of beauty and the media circus so much. C. Jenner is another opportunity for you to worship at the alter of whiteness. Never mind her politics or how she spends her money and how she’s used so many types of privilege to garner attention and more money. Never mind the way she lives and the things she says and how they put her in direct opposition to many of our struggles . You just so happy they talking about transgender anything.That ol master, deep in your psyche is excited theres a new “pretty” white face to associate with it. You’re secretly wishing “if they understand C. Jenner maybe they will understand and accept me.” What makes you think I want anyone who profits from whiteness and the status quo so much to be a “good conversation starter” for anything I care about ?
Most rich,white, celebrity culture loving Trans women could give zero Fucks about me and most of our struggles. Why are we so quick to celebrate them just cause they are Trans and their look fits into neat white heteronormative boxes ? For some of us transition is not about assimilation or a beauty contest. These visibility politics are making me sick. Yall really need to sit down and think about how your politics align with who you celebrating and congratulating. I don’t give a damn how you look being Trans does not make us apart of the same struggle or warrant me trusting let alone advocating for you. What have you done for me lately? How are you living, using power, spending or not spending money, how are you loving? When are we going to grow out of this need to see someone like us in this media in order to feel whole? Who wants to be assimilated and accepted into a system designed to mislead, culturally exploit and destroy you?

Please miss me with any posts or questions about C. Jenner. Hit me up with posts and questions about how we celebrating,loving,and freeing ourselves first, especially if it involves a good dance video.

#dirtyartboi

#morethanvisibility

#blacktranseverything