No justice for Jordan Davis.

Is anyone surprised?

Since its black history month, I’ve read far too many articles on the history of violence against blacks in this country.

Since slavery, there has been this irrational paranoia from whites about the threat of black violence.

Yet, there isn’t one picture of a black mob and a white man hanging from a tree.

Was Michael Dunn fearful of his life? Possibly. The presence of black males is enough to incite fear in a lot of people. That’s the society we live in.

Was Michael Dunn just another racist who feels like black people should just stay in their place? The latter seems to be more accurate.

In Dunn’s own words: “This may sound a bit radical, but if more people would arm themselves and kill these fucking idiots when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

Jordan Davis is another example of a modern day lynching in America. I wonder when will the terms post-racial society will be retired.

What is Sexy?

My sister once dated a man who identified as a feminist and would explicitly ask for consent in sexual encounters. Initially, this unnerved her, no man had ever asked to her ‘own’ her part in a sexual encounter. However, soon enough she was able to enjoy his need for consent and came to think of it as liberating and empowering. Here was a man who not only respected her enough to ask, but someone who just didn’t just want to her sex with her body, but her.

To this day, she is the only woman I know who’s had this experience. Every other woman I know has had the opposite experiences. They’ve been victims of unwanted advances, inappropriate touching, near-rapes and actual rapes.

Recently, I had a conversation with a friend and told her that I ask for permission to touch someone. She soon informed me how unsexy that was and that you should just know. To a certain extent, I agree, everyone wants to be so in sync with their lover that they have an unspoken chemistry. On the contrary, we live in a world where men hate to be ‘friend zoned’, no means yes, men are aggressive and women aren’t supposed to take any initiative in their sexuality. In the world that we live in, is body language enough?

It seems to me everyone thinks sex should play out how it does in his or her favorite love scene or romantic novel. Yet, how many times, if ever, does sex ever look like that? If we’re honest with ourselves-it doesn’t. When the odds of having a positive sexual experience is just as high as having a non positive sexual experience and since sex isn’t all that sexy anyway, why not add consent?

In my experience, sex becomes great with a partner after exploring and having honest conversations about likes and dislikes. Sex isn’t one size fits all. I think consent is another part of women’s liberation. If we truly want ownership of our bodies, we have to be willing to own our sexuality as well. When rape culture is so pervasive, we have to find a way to make consent sexy.

I Don't Like Remix

I made my first video. I'm a big girl now lol.

www.indiegogo.com/whoownsmybody

My documentary, Who Owns My Body?

Ceck out my indiegogo campaign for my documentary: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/194405?a=474741

Love and Hip Hop Atlanta

My news feed was overrun with statuses about Love and Hip Hop ATL, so I had to check it out. I enjoy some messy ‘reality’ television and this show gives me a healthy dosage. Now I don’t need to give a recap of the drama because if you clicked on this, you probably watched it. 

There’s a myriad of things I could discuss, but what made my antennas flare up was the relationship with Mimi and Stevie J. You’re probably thinking I’m about to talk about their love triangle with that manly Joseline character. Nope. What I really want to know is why is Mimi with a man for 15 years and he isn’t even close to proposing. After 15 years, he’s finally trying to buy a house. Before you can even think aw how sweet, he’s not even planning to live with her. 

It may not be fair to put a time limit on when couples should marry, but 15 years. It’s not just Mimi, its Emily waiting 9 years with Fab and Chrissy waiting 7 years for Jim. I’m thinking when does one get fed up with waiting. I just heard a story about a woman that waited 8 years before she got the title of girlfriend. I don’t feel like it takes that long to figure out if you want to marry someone. If you’ve reached the 3 -year mark with no ring in sight, chuck him the deuces. I hate to see my ladies waste all their sexy years dating somebody for an eternity, pop out his babies, start looking like a baked potato, then he marry the next chick.

Everybody was in the club shaking their ass to Beyonce, but did anybody listen to the words? Chile, she said if you liked it then you should a put a ring on it. 

I mean even Lebron want a ring lol. 

Trayvon Martin

I cried for Troy Davis. I didn’t know him personally, but he was a representation to me, as well as many, the value of black life. While it couldn’t be proven he was guilty without a shadow of doubt, he was still executed. His case made international headlines. I remember a guy saying; “People are hopping on the bandwagon with all this Troy Davis talk.” I was surprised that someone would compare seeking justice and trying to save a life to simply hopping on the bandwagon. I guess all those people marched on Washington because they wanted to be cool like MLK.

Trayvon Martin was a young black teen wearing a hoodie and walking home from the store when a white vigilante, George Zimmerman who later claims self-defense, gunned him down. Even though, multiple witnesses and pieces of evidence say otherwise. Zimmerman even admits in a 911 call to following Trayvon. Its funny how Trayvon could pose such a threat, but its Zimmerman doing the following. Trayvon’s case has caused outraged considering his killer wasn’t arrested. People have been taking pictures in hoodies as a sign of solidarity with his family and against injustice.

Yet, once again here come the naysayers. The people who have a problem with others wanting justice for Trayvon. Most of them say black on black crimes kill people everyday, so why make a big deal out of this. Others say, don’t compare Trayvon Martin to Emmett Till. Why can’t we be happy black people are mobilizing around an issue? Should we not fight against institutionalized racism because our communities are plagued by violence? I grew up in a poor, violence filled neighborhood. I know three young men who fell victim to black on black crime. I also know three young men who died from white on black crime in the form of police shootings.

Trayvon Martin is Emmett Till. Trayvon Martin is Troy Davis.  We have to make the connection between black on black crime and state sanctioned racial violence.

Institutionalized racism allows for:

Police shootings with no justice

Poverty

Lack of education

Prison industrial complex- that our young black men are becoming apart of at increasingly younger ages

Lack of gun control in our communities.

As long as our youth have easier access to a gun than they do a job or an adequate education, then our communities will continue to be plagued by violence. 

And since we’re so concerned with black on black crime, if George Zimmerman were black, he’d be in jail right now.

None of us are free until all of us are free

 

Causing Divisions to Sustain Power

As a liberal, I often wondered how poor white Republicans could be disillusioned into voting for Republicans when it’s quite obvious that they don’t have their best economic interests in hand. It all comes down to the Republicans ability to cause divisions. It’s done with social issues such as abortion. Racism plays a huge role. Latinos are portrayed as 'illegals' that take all the jobs. Black people are portrayed as a lazy and waiting on a government handout.

Its amazing to think how advanced we could be as a country if poor people decided to work together for economical change instead of being hung up on racial bias.

I went from thinking about this not in terms of politics but in the black community. One huge division is between the men and women. Historically, it has been a widely accepted myth that the black woman does better than the black man. It was said the Black woman was more powerful than the Black man and often emasculated him. It’s just ridiculous to think that somehow in the midst of a patriarchal, capitalist society black women were able to turn the black community into a matriarchal society. Has there ever been in a time in history that women of any racial group has ever fared dramatically better economically, socially and politically than her male counterparts?

Yes, one can make the point that more black women graduate from college. Yet, men with the same education still earn more. Single high-school educated black women with children have a ticket to poverty. Black men are imprisoned at alarming rates but black women are infected with HIV at alarming rates. Now does the discussion move towards, what worse, prison or HIV?

It doesn’t end with gender; there are class divisions. Who’s educated? Who talks white? Who’s not black enough? The point is these senseless divisions are preventing us from forming the much needed unity if we ever want to make progress a group.

It’s done with religion. Black pastors supported groups that placed offensive, racist billboards in the black community. I understand because of your religion, you’re anti-abortion, but that doesn’t mean supporting a group that thinks its ok to call black children endangered species. How about we refrain from shaming black women from having abortions and instead shame a society that makes it viable to have an abortion because you’re poor.

I think once we understand the intersections of our lives and the fact we have more similarities than differences, divisions will cease to matter.

“None of us are free until all of us are free.” MLK