One week one Day

“ You’re always frightened” – Ebony

It is October 1^st sometime in the early early morning and I am having sobbing fit . The first run-through is close to the end and I am trying desperately to hold together until something. MC Amazon has successfully completed her first rap , We have stepped around the room with enough grace to make any Omega or Delta proud, and I just have to be true enough in this last bit and then…….

“ I’m not traveling with your SHIT any longer”- Taja

And I had to look into her beautiful brown eyes. And I lost it. Completely. And for the first time in maybe forever , I felt not only held up and held onto but understood. I have amazing friends, of all walks of life, but here in this space, in this room is the first time I truly felt understood , not as a subject , object, or target but as a person and I had to be honest.

And honestly, it hurts.

There is a lack of softness, or kindness in the world for me. I feel it and I had/have always made the assumption , egotistical as it seemed that it was about me, in some very specific way I was wrong. Poorly made, unsuccessful, underachieving, paranoid, that led to what I felt and where I was. Even after conscious effort at learning about oppression, sexual violence, economic stratification , yada yada buzzword buzzword , emotionally and physically I still felt wrong. My intellectual growth did nothing for where I held my pain in my body or in my spirit. It would not let go.

If it’s not one thing it’s the motherf*&king next. That’s not even a saying at this point . It’s dictation- Kelz

We climb Mother Harriet , and circle her and sing and step and hum . It is a rehearsal that is magically turning into a matinee performance. Two elders stop by to take pictures and as the rain begins , I expect them to move on . Beautifully , artfully the merely extend their umbrellas and keep watching. I see one of them as everything I am not. Poised, beautiful , put together. I will hold her later as she and I cry.

“ I see you”

“ I see me in you”

“I create so much life ! Why I gotta feel like this, for this one thing”- Jess

My girl T is holding me, as I hold the woman next to me. And words come , of love , of fear, of life, of billboards, and praying grandmothers. The thousand slings and arrows that are tossed at our black bodies for existing, that we are never to admit hurts.

It hits me then, is tapping at me now and I hope continues everyday for the rest of my life.

These people don’t want me to hurt. I look into their faces and believe for a moment, with startling power that . There is nothing wrong with me. I am not alone.

I deserve to heal .

I will have to do it myself.

This makes me feel like ( beautiful dance)- Audrey.

One week , one day later . I had to take a break to write this and sit with it again. What it means for me and in the world that it takes a movement to feel seen. That the desire of autonomy is world shifting. That there is so much to put down in order to get up.

Of how much love is needed to heal us . And how much we have and are blocked from giving.

And how I look at the world differently now , how I ask for different things. That I ask at all.

I expect movements, actions, to love me and how powerful that is .

On October 1^st I got that , at the feet of an ancestors, in the arms of my sisters

And I wonder now everyday not only how to keep it but to share it with you.

Like that good article about Norway

It ASSUMES people are playing rhetorical points rather than ya know responding to the very real and often impactful way profiling makes their lives unsafe and hellish in ways that they LIVE IN as bodies of suspicion. Is it inappropriate .. Probably but it assumes that everyone who is making those charges or talkinga bout those things is doing it for rhetorical points rather than a response to lived experience

which some folks are but for those that aren't they now are painted as monsters for using a moment that well let's be honest is one of the few times folks PAY ATTENTION to the coverage of marginalized bodies as IMPETUS AND TARGETS of ignored terrorism while being HARASSED falsely for being it's perpetrators

and no saying " OF course no one does that really to Muslims/Latinos/Natives/Blacks until we put it into an article by a white person or approved person of color

isn't sufficient for the reality

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Or more personally my experience with PP .

I am on their listserves

I hopefully will be training soon with them.

I do not much like them , as an institution . Historically or currently

But if I believe that folks need accessible reproductive care then welp I gotta give them support. It's really not an option but it is ASSUMED that i can't hold two ideas at once .

That i think your org sucks is badly organized presumptive and still kind of racist BUT needs care

And it is insulting to believe that i can't be against the assinine billboards directed at WOC AND not lik e PP

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and what I think is very telling is lets put cards on table is that for teh most part progressive /liberal blogs are kind of intensely horrible at mustering action support and grassroots engagement

in the way that POC/Disability/Trans and Queer blogs are. For a claim to have much more REACH they have a lot less sucess in doing anything but supporting themselves

and they can not reconcile the idea that doing better might mean an actual diverse approach

the thing that right wingers fear is taht by actually diversifying their countries teh automatic primacy of whiteness will leave thus changing the way they have to live

which odly in DIFFERENT WAYS ( lest i be accused of not knowing teh difference) liberal progressive fear the EXACT SAME THING

while right wingers fear it as a instrument of larger social change around their core beliefs

left wingers fear it as an outcome of their beliefs that will force them to reexamine their core selves.

To answer leonine

ech Vite
or why you needed to see a picture of my first decent self manicure


So to answer leoning Claire .
" why wouldn't they hire you"



This is my birthday month. I am 27 . Yep you read that correctly for all the boondoggle and the length of time I been boring some of you, I am still only 27 .

I was thinking about that job that I am applying for though I am terrified, because well I know why they might not consider me.

I have a great history of pissing people off and speaking my mind,but I started blogging in need , in need of something that I hoped I could find .

I would have claimed and am often advertised under the guise of feminist blogging. I kind of hate that and prefer to say I am a lover of my people and a passionate artist.Part of it is idealogical of course, there is a wide gulf between what is important to me and what's important to them. A good bit of it is admission .

I wasn't granted it . And I am always seeking it. I have always been seeking it. Admission means strength, means comfort. I came to the Internet looking for it in progressivism

Because I had been admitted in some of the most elite circles, I had been denied others. I had feelings and thoughts And had heard tell that this "place" would have a place for me .

I was wrong.

I was wrong.i was the girl with the fake tooth, the fat ass , the four bellies,who never learned to dress , speak or be right. Who collects nail polishes b ut never learned to give herself or receive a proper manicure.
Unloved, unlovingly touched, confused and trying to find that key, that product

It's something I share with possibly a whole bunch of you . Which I am honored to say a lot of you have told me .

There were keys and circles and cliques that mirrored the constant environs of my life. What I needed like air, food, education were such blind constants in other lives no one seemed to comprehend my hunger, my allegiance or my desperate need to fix .

And online for a bit it seemed something bigger understood not only it's existence in me but also my desperate need to understand it.

It is easier for no lack of practice to try and speak of it in terms of my race, size, gender, or ability. I learned those codes . But the part that searches and desires change across all those locations and more?

As with all truly surprising journeys , it is the relations that are truly changing my life . The friends and loves and sisters and brothers and readers and joys
I find along the way.

Rather than soothe , it has often only increased my passion . These terms , these abstracts that get tossed around have names , scents , babies , lips , laughs that I love. That have done no less than save my life . And these stories, these news bites , these bits and pieces I have exchanged over all of these platforms get those faces , those hearts and for me it is just too much to bear.

Make better networks? Work the system ?! Fuck that was what I said, keeping the tremulous desperate part of me that had no idea how to do such a thing AND keep this fragile , beautiful sense of belonging and being loved as well.

And as I'd it is not difficult to see bylines, and conferences and deals go by without feeling

"THAT SHOULD BE MINE"

But the larger feeling is that

" ON TERMS THAT RESPECT WHAT I LOVE"
That was often the rage , the even now silent scary rage that no amount of cursing or machete wielding has truly exposed. Why is it so difficult for a black woman to love and see a Chicana in Detroit, to find ways to be with a loved Puertoriquena in her own city , to feel safe in teh arms of black man in NYC, to know the woman she loves in Cali will hear her name and not the name slapped on her by bigotry.

It was the gasping furious rage , that is easy to think of as jealousy. That is lumped and bumped along those ideas because it is so uncomfortable. " They want what we have " That can turn a blind eye to the idea that the center of the world is elsewhere . That never had to see or dissect or build a world that made them feel safe , that came to it;'s love from the space of I made this on my own.

When you always have the keys , the tools , the knowledge dismissing others is merely a habit . No matter how you reword it, or defend it the clear message of you don't matter, the world aggrees with me and I only have to wait till I can prove it is a ready tool.

I was the direction of that message and it stung . Ran ice and fire and barbed wire under my skin and through my veins. Punishing again and again with the naked fear

" WillI ever be someone worth loving, worth accepting, worth being encouraged to live?"

or would I always be

too fat

too clack

chipped fingers

bad table manners

too nerdy/needy

too too much

And naively as one does in their early twenties I have bled it all over an electronic page, in public.
Cursing,screaming, immolating bridges and black vernacular dancing around the ashes.

Fucking with versions of womanhood and black stalwartness, swallowing bile for watching peopel advocate silently or openly for my demise

I knew no better. it never occurred to me to be resolute like petit or Diggingforroots, beautiful in their " well FUCK that" or breathtakingly blessed as Lisa ,Little Light,APG searching deeply and infinitely for the good in others. The pleasant practical peace and passion of my buddy.You have no idea how I long(ed) for the pragmatism and clarity of Kai , Wifey, Adele,Mala , or the brainy sarcasm of nez and fnc/Sylvia, the acid insight of Ilyka and might have sold off bits to just be as smart as BFP.

Instead , I was/am a multilingual gaping maw of hurt and anger and love and need and overshare , wrapped in a deep fuck you aversion to editing.

and I was searchable

Who would want that?

Who needs that?

Why would anybody want that?

Skills wise

Of course you want me .

Who else keeps a forty hour a week job, develops curriculum , edits video and translates language while maintaining a 1000+ word a day output.

Who jots notes upon notes , reads books upon books on how to reach people and galvanize them.

Who obsessively tracks mediums , reads philosophy and has learned to smile through nothing less than pandemonium?

Who else searches obsessively in this kind of body.

I am alone in this , and I have proudly earned it , but that hubris lays bare right next to that hurt

A me a whole person

I found out about Seche Vite, from a coworker. Ten dollars.

My manicure a constant bane, had been solved . I could do it myself I had the key.

I cried about it because to fix that what I had always assumed was broken

A thing so small so miniscule that I never believed I could do.was everything at that moment.

Maybe what they said was true I wasn't broken

I just had to learn

Why Shawties Need Skillz

It has become more and more necessary we speak to you in OUR tone of voice.

Hello everybody my name is Sydette. I don't use it often , it causes me great panic but I need to be real with you , and part of that realness is my name.

I gotta ask you for something ,else.

On June 23-26 there is a conference in Detroit called the Allied Media Conference. I have attended it three times, advised once, met some of my nearest and dearest for the first time .

This year I am presenting as part of the Shawty Got Skillz skillshare and

Y'all we need funds

We need 6,000 dollars and we're asking it in a time when we know folks is in need and in straits.

But Shawties Got/Need Skillz.

I been online long enough as my pen name and alive in my self to know what Shawties don't got. We don't have the "right" connections, the "right" degrees , or the "right" bodies , in the " right" combinations to be important.

We are the downfall, the problem, the thought police, the overly PC, WHY YOU GOTTA TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUS ,

the hood rat, chickenheads, tramps, tricks

the nerdy, bookish,elitist

the myopic stupid, too ghetto, provincial

popping gum , popping off , curse too much,

butch dykey don't know what dey is

Praise Lord and Love the Lorde

Bump Beenie Man and Get A Little TOO Low to Lil' John

and we just

Laugh.

Too young for wisdom, too earthy for expertise

Shawties get Skillz

we find the loop holes and the cracks

we study the books and the papers and the journals

we battle the MARTA, MTA, BART , SEPTA Tunnel

back roads school yards bashments

we are in the long lines of miracle workers

herb women

bad bitches

Who are taught very early not to ask for anything.

Not without a preface , or a qualification, not without expecting a sacrifice, the mythic pound of flesh, piece of ass, peace of mind

Parts of ourselves.

Shawties Need Skillz

And I am not going to overinflate my case. I am not asking you to do anything less than change the world for a couple people.

So they can change the world for a couple others , so on and so forth

This is not glamorous, this will not " shift the discourse" , or break ground or make the news or get us good air time. We are not gonna be aiming to stick it to someone, to expand the name , to be new and fresh and ready for primetime.

There are never enough voices, never enough stories, never enough ways for us to save our selves , we have what we need and we have what we need to make even more

This is not about shortage or lack but abundance. We want to create a space where we can share and grow and create. There will be no profit because the skills we will make free. There will be a product because we are working and we create.

This is about healing and sharing tools to heal, to report and to connect.

You are not aiding the downtrodden and the resourceless.

Shawties Got Skillz, talents, and magic but we do NOT have money.

So we're asking for it.

I am asking for it as a big ass shawty I am asking you to go here

Look at these miracles and help them make some more.

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I am part of this Chipin , but I am requesting that you donate here first and that I be funded LAST as part of the goal . I need the money but help should go to those who haven't gone first.

IF you can't give believe me I understand but spread it far and wide as you can .

and yes i closed comments

first time ever find my ass on tumblr