on the vital importance of being earnest

How We Stay(ed) Human:

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:01:38 -0400

to remember

before i am my parent’s daughter, my sibling’s sister, my friend’s spare shoulder, the passing stranger’s keeper, the late bloomer, my lover’s lover, Love’s lover, anybody’s forgiver, the past’s healer, I am first, my own.

i am first my own. my own. my own.

i am my own tall glass of water, my own caretaker, my own sister, my own respecter, my own shoulder, my own singer, my own writer, my own beggar, my own decider, my own forgiver, my own fixer, my own accepter and most importantly, my own believer and lover.

i cannot relocate from this body to build castles in your speech. i cannot hold your feet in my palms and call it prayer. i cannot beg my pains, my dreams and my faith out of my skin with any name but my own in my mouth.

there will be times when life will almost freeze me over in the comfort of my own bed. but even the sun no matter how generous it is with it’s heat, can only try to save me from outside my window for so long until it wears itself out. until it wears the sky inside out and all there is silence. it is true that it will call the moon to keep me company. but when the rest of the world fades into shadows around me, what can the moon do for me? is its best not to try to keep it’s eyes open just so that everything is not completely black before dawn comes again? will it not fade away when its shift is over? yes, yes, yes the universe is charitable. but it will never be enough.

because besides the artist, only the art can save itself. and besides God, only I can save myself.

I will be kind to myself. i will be kind to myself so that I can be kind to others. and I have learnt that the only way to teach a thing correctly is by first understanding it. now, what good is teaching you a thing if i do it halfheartedly? what good is teaching, is loving, is giving, is worshipping, is praising, if it is not done at my best? the world has put too many people in my hands for me to teach my love to. i have too many people to teach my hugs to. too many people to teach my God to. even more people to teach my cracks, my flaws, my lessons and my laugh to. heck, i have too many strangers to teach this smile to. so if i blanket my shame, my flaws and my scars, will that make them heal faster? if i hide my insecurities in the back pockets of my life, will that be willpower enough to fade them into apparition? and if at the sight of potholes in my roads you cower, then are you worth carrying along for the journey?

I will not sell myself short to prove a thing to anything or anyone. because even with all anyone can ever give me in return, it will never be enough to afford another me. and not even if they give me themselves in return will i be whole.

so when I am approached unlovingly, open door in hand, threats and ultimatums beating with confidence of talking drum in throat, this is why i will not move. this is why i will not take off my shoes to dance to any music/with any person that does not inspire my bones to want to find even better ways to hold this body up.

and if it offends you, then i beg you, do not forgive me.

brownskin-blackink

Green Eyes | Coldplay

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:01:08 -0400

Green Eyes | Coldplay

"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness."

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:21:24 -0400

“Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.”

- Alejandro Jodorowsky (via viage)

Chicago, I’m comin

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:56:00 -0400

Chicago, I’m comin

Please Complicate Your Analysis

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:46:00 -0400

Dear First Lady and President,

I respect you. I wanted to be a rapper. I wanted to be a ball-player. Today, like most black men under 40, I am neither. You do the Dougie when convenient. You brush your shoulder off when convenient. You admonish black folks for not being you when convenient. We worry about your safety in spite of this. We wish you would talk to them about race and responsibility sometimes.

Please complicate your analysis.

Today, I teach and write. And rap to myself. I am an above average writer and teacher. I am working on being better at being human. I am not a father, nor husband. The most mediocre white man at my bougie job has 16x the wealth I have. My grandmother has the beginnings of dementia, and she is still way smarter than me. She was only allowed to work the line at a chicken plant. She has no wealth, but lots of love for both of you. She prays for your safety. Please complicate your analysis. Working class white security guards have entered my office 3x times asking to see my ID. Every time, I tell them, “Fuck you. Show me yours.” I desperately cling to intellectual superiority over them. They powerfully claim whiteness and relative wealth over me. This has nothing, and everything, to do with my wanting to be a rapper and baller. I respect you. We respect you. Please complicate your analysis. Imani Perry writes books you should read. Please tell the truth.

Kiese Laymon is the author of Long Division and How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.

(via geedee215)

Giraffe by Budi Satria Kwan

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:05:01 -0400

Giraffe by Budi Satria Kwan

"I don’t miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately,..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 10:01:37 -0400

“I don’t miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately, it’s true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. If you’re not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience… It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.”

- Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (via tuileries)

Audio

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:54:31 -0400

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Tue, 21 May 2013 09:25:33 -0400

"My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:53 -0400

“My heart is at ease knowing that what was meant for me will never miss me, and that what misses me was never meant for me.”

- ابو عبدالله محمد بن إدريس الشافعيّ (via unapologeticscorn)

amen

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Mon, 20 May 2013 11:59:17 -0400

On Saying No...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:07:09 -0400

“It’s okay to say no. It’s okay to say no to someone you love. It’s okay to say no to a friend. It’s okay to say no to a parent or child. It’s okay to say no to a job or relationship. It’s okay to say no to sexual advances. And it’s okay to say no to a person who’s romantically interested in you. Even if it hurts someone’s feelings, even if you disappoint people, even if you’re judged and ostracized — it’s okay to say no to anything and anyone that causes you pain or makes you uncomfortable. You’re allowed to put yourself first. You’re allowed to set limits and boundaries. And you deserve to make your happiness and wellbeing a priority. You don’t ever have to settle for something or someone that doesn’t feel right. And you definitely don’t have to compromise yourself for the sake of making other people happy. You have to take care of yourself, and if that means saying no, it’s more than okay.”

—

Daniell Koepke (via yasodhara)

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Mon, 20 May 2013 10:05:46 -0400

"maybe hearts were made to pump blood. maybe lungs were made for flood. I won’t blunt my blade..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:03:34 -0400

“maybe hearts were made to pump blood. maybe lungs were made for flood. I won’t blunt my blade for cut these chains. rather let my limbs be dragged through mud.”

- Frank Ocean, Wise Man

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Fri, 17 May 2013 15:19:17 -0400

reblog forever

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:17:00 -0400

reblog forever

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Wed, 15 May 2013 11:53:37 -0400

ma raison d'etre...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:34:00 -0400

“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you…. What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language.

I began to ask each time: “What’s the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?” …Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: What’s the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it’s personal. And the world won’t end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don’t miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” And at last you’ll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

—Audre Lorde (via thepeoplesrecord)

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Wed, 15 May 2013 09:23:51 -0400

In other words, Richwine’s work—his premise that racial IQ differences have biological origins tied to the particular “races”—is racist by definition. There’s no other way to describe it.

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:50:00 -0400

This is par for the course. Whenever someone is accused of racism—even if they are caught saying something patently racist—the response is to deny that they could ever hold any prejudice. We all acknowledge that there is racism in the United States, but we strenuously deny that there are any actual racists. Jason Richwine once detailed a hierarchy of racial IQ, telling an audience that “you have Jews with the highest average IQ, usually followed by East Asians, then you have non-Jewish whites, Hispanics, and then blacks.”

If this isn’t racism, then what is?

-Jamelle Bouie, There Still Aren’t Any Racists in America