Tag Archives: racism

Black Joy is Revolutionary

Posted on by under Piss Off the World, Rants & Random Ramblings

Man! I haven’t done this in a WHILE! And not for a lack of topics to discuss, purely because I’ve been focused on a multitude of other issues in my life. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that I decided to really rededicate myself to my writing (and by extension, this blog.) By the way, how y’all like the new URL? Make sure y’all tell your friends to come read something. Thanks!

Normally at this point, I would give y’all a rundown of what’s been going on in my corner of the universe since we last spoke. Honestly, I just don’t feel like doing it, Plus, it’s way too much to go into right now. Maybe we’ll do that another day. So let’s hop right into it, shall we?

I know you’re looking at the title of this post and the accompanying picture and probably thinking, “This dude wrote a blog about a hoodie?” Well, kinda. Maybe a little backstory will make it make sense.

So I bought the hoodie in question a few years ago. It was right after COVID really kicked the world in the teeth and we basically all lived in nothing but pajamas and loungewear. As most of us probably did at that time, I spent a lot of time scrolling social media and buying stuff I probably didn’t really need. It’s not like I was spending my disposable income on going outside and having fun, so I might as well build an impressive collection of hoodies. If you ever get bored, scroll my IG to see it.

But one night, I come across this post with this hoodie that truly spoke to me. BLACK JOY IS REVOLUTIONARY. Even the website name had a powerful message behind it (here’s the link, go support)

https://blackmensmile.shop

So I buy the hoodie and in my mind, it was the most magnificent thing. We as black people have rarely had anything to celebrate or be joyous about in the country. But somehow, some way, we still find a way to be happy. And for people that look at our history in this country, they can’t fathom why. It truly leaves some people flabbergasted that we don’t burn the whole fucking country down. And that’s not to say that we don’t have our moments of rage. Especially recently. Nor does it mean that we don’t have movements that are seen as the polar opposite of black joy.

But on a daily basis, no matter what the universe throws at us, we still find a way to be completely and utterly unbothered. There’s no better example of this than the pockets of blackness on social media. We take absolutely NOTHING serious! Any and everything can be made fun of! And that jovial spirit stands in full defiance of a country that has enslaved, brutalized, murdered, subjugated, and exploited people that look like me since the first slave ships landed on the coast of Western Africa in the late 1400s.

But I digress, we’re not here to have a conversation about Critical Race Theory. At least not today.

For the past 3+ years, this hoodie was my silent protest. I’d proudly wear it whenever and wherever. Black folks would see me out and show their approval. Some less melanated people had a less supportive reaction. But I gave not a single fuck. Thank my dad for that, I swear I hear his voice in my head every time I start talking about some black shit.

Fast forward to present day. We all see what the current administration is doing to our country. And while quite a few of us saw it coming and tried to be the opposition, the majority of the country either didn’t see what was in store (we really don’t know how) or wanted it to happen. Either way, the shit has hit the proverbial fan. Folks fucked around, and now they are finding out. And they’re becoming outraged, and rightfully so. Elected officials are employees of the people. Their job description is to serve the public, not just the wealthy elite. And don’t get me started on what that weird son of a bitch from South Africa is doing. No one voted for his Nazi saluting ass, yet he really does seem to be the guy running the country. He even sold cars to the President on the White House lawn. I tend to think I have a pretty vivid imagination, especially for a writer, but even I couldn’t have come up with a story like this.

Through their outrage over what’s occurring, the pig mentally challenged financially strapped former supporters of the current presidential administration have looked for allies in the very people that they once sought to keep oppressed. And to their credit, most black folks have opted against taking to the streets to voice their disapproval with the status quo. Some have even gone a step further and made sure to carefree they are in the face of what’s happening. Because what can really come of us taking to the streets en masse to show our disdain? In getting upset and raging against the machine? Not. A. Fucking. Thing. It’s exactly what they want. They want us to give them a reason to really bring back the pre-Civil Rights Era of this country. So by sitting this one out and showcasing our happiness in these troubled times, we are truly protesting. In this moment, our black joy is revolutionary.

See what I did there? Until next time, peace and love. And stay revolutionary.

Transcript of Jesse Williams’ BET Humanitarian of the Year Award Acceptance Speech 

Posted on by under General, In the Words of Another..., Piss Off the World

Peace peace. Thank you, Debra. Thank you, BET. Thank you Nate Parker, Harry and Debbie Allen for participating in that. 
Before we get into it, I just want to say I brought my parents out tonight. I just want to thank them for being here, for teaching me to focus on comprehension over career, and that they make sure I learn what the schools were afraid to teach us. And also thank my amazing wife for changing my life.
Now, this award – this is not for me. This is for the real organizers all over the country – the activists, the civil rights attorneys, the struggling parents, the families, the teachers, the students that are realizing that a system built to divide and impoverish and destroy us cannot stand if we do. It’s kind of basic mathematics – the more we learn about who we are and how we got here, the more we will mobilize. 
Now, this is also in particular for the black women in particular who have spent their lifetimes dedicated to nurturing everyone before themselves. We can and will do better for you. Now, what we’ve been doing is looking at the data and we know that police somehow manage to deescalate, disarm and not kill white people everyday. So what’s going to happen is we are going to have equal rights and justice in our own country or we will restructure their function and ours.
Now… I got more y’all – yesterday would have been young Tamir Rice’s 14th birthday so I don’t want to hear anymore about how far we’ve come when paid public servants can pull a drive-by on 12 year old playing alone in the park in broad daylight, killing him on television and then going home to make a sandwich. Tell Rekia Boyd how it’s so much better than it is to live in 2012 than it is to live in 1612 or 1712. Tell that to Eric Garner. Tell that to Sandra Bland. Tell that to Dorian Hunt. 
Now the thing is, though, all of us in here getting money – that alone isn’t gonna stop this. Alright, now dedicating our lives, dedicating our lives to getting money just to give it right back for someone’s brand on our body when we spent centuries praying with brands on our bodies, and now we pray to get paid for brands on our bodies.
There has been no war that we have not fought and died on the front lines of. There has been no job we haven’t done. There is no tax they haven’t leveed against us – and we’ve paid all of them. But freedom is somehow always conditional here. “You’re free,” they keep telling us. But she would have been alive if she hadn’t acted so… free.
Now, freedom is always coming in the hereafter, but you know what, though, the hereafter is a hustle. We want it now.
And let’s get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote – the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander.That’s not our job, alright – stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.
We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries, yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil – black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit. The thing is though… the thing is that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real.
Thank you

Today Marks the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech

Posted on by under In the Words of Another...

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!