Don’t Ask Me if I’m OK

Don’t ask me if I’m ok because I’m not.  I’m a black man in amerikkka who is hunted and misjudged daily. But this time of year in particular I’m a ball of emotions just trying to survive my wounds. I call this time of year the crying season. Fall to early winter all the holiday stuff stirs up a lot of family pain. There is a well of tears I still carry from being poor, black,trans,and queer. Sadness I can’t shake because my family is so distant from me physically and emotionally. Sadness, frustrations,and feelings of  failure cause I cant seem to find my way back to them (and I’m sure if they want me there anymore). Sadness I repress or work around most of the year. Then fall comes  and it rises to the surface all my conflicted feelings around feeling pushed out of black organizing spaces,my original faith, and family communities simply for living my truth overwhelms me.

For the past few years I’ve been trying to reconnect to family and childhood friends. 4x this year people said they wanted to meet up and reconnect then when the time came they disappeared stopped answering messages. I think they just couldn’t handle meeting the man I am today. That’s their choice I can’t force people to accept me or to want to be apart of my life but to get my hopes up again and leave me hanging was kinda devastating. I want to push those who have been chosen family and great friends away cause I feel the need for them and the absence of my blood peeps the most during this time. Fears of abandonment cause me to hide and make me hella grouchy.

Healing is a process and though I know I’ve come  far sometimes my wounds are ripped open again and I feel shame for feeling these pains. It’s hard watching so many people have children and I still have none. Every year the reality that I probably will never be able to have children with my DNA grows heavier. Makes me feel weak cursed and less than. Honestly I’m worried for my heart. I love children so much but now when i see families sometimes Jealousy, anger, and bitterness rises.

I have high functioning chronic depression and this time of year  the internal fight for my life intensifies. Daily searching for reasons not to give up . Don’t ask me if I’m OK cause I’m not. Ask  me over for a home cooked meal or to giggle to cartoons. Take me to nature. Send an encouraging message from Time to time. Understand when I can’t find the strength to come to your family functions alone(but don’t stop inviting me). These are all things I do for people I care for when they allow me the opportunity. If you can’t do those things that’s cool too just don’t ask me if I’m OK when you see me. Just say hi.This maybe TMI for some but I’m just trying to get better by expressing the hardest things to express. I appreciate my chosen family and friends its just a hard time of year.

What About the Protest Vote?

I refuse to participate in a fixed game out of fear. Why should I legitimize this corrupt system with my participation when life will continue to be hard and probably get worse no matter who wins? My ancestors fought so I could have the right to this opinion and to choose whether to vote or not. Don’t use their legacy to shame my choices.

We have been throwing votes and hopes into a system that has been beating, raping, and exploiting people and the environment for centuries. When will you have enough of choosing between the better of two evils ? What is it going to take for you to jump off this burning sinking ship? Don’t you believe in our ability to create something more humane together?

This culture is literally killing our sisters, brothers, and ripping apart families daily. In the era of the so called first black president our suffering can be googled and watched online for entertainment while the perpetrators continue to go free with no consequence from this so called criminal justice system. Yet you want to fix your mouth to tell me if I don’t vote its all my fault and I have no right to say anything? How dare you insult my intelligence by going into empty naive speeches about how someone died so I could therefore I must. Trust, I am not ranting based on  what they teach us about the so called civil rights movement I understand political science and resistance.

My ancestors died protesting the same system that continues to find new ways to enslave and kill us today. Voting was the strategy then and now after decades of exercising the vote how has that strategy served us? Us, as in the masses of people not just a handful of politicians,reformists, and business people who have found a comfort zone profiting from our pain under the guise of “American Democracy” or the so called “Free Market”.

What is the role of the vote in the struggle for liberation in America? Are the participatory democracy strategies worth all the time and energy we have been giving them? Did our ancestors really die so we could choose between Trump or Clinton? If voting isn’t such a high priority then what next? These are the intergenerational discussions we should be having? Not patronizing respectability diatribes about whats wrong with young people today or why one must vote. How much more political theatre must you see? Bush stealing an election and lying to take us to war wasn’t enough? Maybe the betrayal and disappoint from little return on Obama’s hope dope campaign and his subsequent continue of the status quo time in office might move you. If having a black president can’t stop the police from murdering people with little to no consequence daily what’s the point?

Feels more and more like fascism and less like democracy each day. What will it take for us to get real and move away from the participatory democracy strategies and the shaming of people who use their feet to protest and build; instead of voting just because someone died or because they are a little more afraid of one candidate over the other? We are the vanguard, the world is watching. Participating out of fear or ignorance isn’t freedom.

#JustVotingIsntEnough #DirtyArtBoi #CorruptElectionsWontFreeUs #WakeUp