i am in a thread that is literally blowing my mind!
Kiese Laymon
"Kanye need to march his ass over there and find Amber Rose a switch. We so gross and evil sometimes."
Brian Alsup : "A lot of times. Majority of times. We be hurting. And then we be hurting.
Kiese Laymon : "yup. but how come they don't be hurting us with their hurt?"
Brian Alsup : "A lot of reasons. For one, we'd kill them. Literally and figuratively. For two, black femme people are taught when they hurt to hurt themselves. We taught to hurt them.
For three, we awful."
"A lot of us brothers been fighting better for awhile. And the punches and bullets we can't give to white supremacy we give to black women, children, and black lgbtq folks."
Wednesday Ofori: "
But it helps a lot that I see you brothers trying to question and puzzle through this, while taking accountability, as you can, for this toxicity. We puzzle through it too. We know that a lot of it, probably most of it, is because brothers are hurt. That's why we stay longer, that's why we give a million chances, that's why we put our bodies on the line. But we need y'all to do better. And to recognize the trauma that we carry too and have some compassion. Yes, we hold it down, but at a high price - our sanity, our civility, our kindness, our physical health, etc..."
Brian Alsup: " Wednesday Ofori and Amber Butts, sorry, y'all, I was skyping with my therapist. Ain't mean to leave y'all out like that."
" Wednesday Ofori, I can only imagine, sis. I know that y'all are at y'all breaking point. And well beyond it. And brothers are out here being horribly abusive. Aiding the white supremacy.
I used to be that dude wanting cookies. Trying to be "good" at being decent. I need this kind of feedback.
I need y'all telling me that I'm not doing enough. I just got out of a co-dependent unhealthy relationship with a black woman cause I realized I haven't figured out what loving black women/myself looks like.
A lot of us brothers been fighting better for awhile. And the punches and bullets we can't give to white supremacy we give to black women, children, and black lgbtq folks."
Amber Butts : "Brian Alsup, yes. A lot of the conversations I have with black men in relationship with women revolve around what lovin looks like according to Black women. Often we see men displaying abusive behavior against their partners and getting passes. Y'all can enjoy having sex with women and still hate/ not like/ not show love/respect for us."
Brian Alsup: " Forreal. My relationship was a long distance one and we are both mentally ill and so it looked like her making me a "need" and me having to be needed. Neither one of us knew what wholeness separate from each other. And we would push each other way. Compare ourselves to other people. It just got to be too much. I figured I needed to love myself before I could do any loving of anyone else. Especially black women."
Amber Butts : "^ this. Yes. Thinking about the ways we love, abuse and prioritize ourselves is important. Even in families, some of the ways we've learned to "heal" are really just watered down versions of survival (not to say that that isn't a feat) but that there's soul searching and honesty that are necessary as well. We gotta confront the ghosts passed down and carried."
Brian Alsup "... I would have not been this open a few years ago. But I realized that vulnerability is a necessity to leading a healthy life. And not replicating abuse."
" I have affirmations that I tell myself. Like I'm beautiful and worthy and deserving of comfort and that allows me to regain a sense of humanity and in turn be decent to black women, black children, and black LGBTQ folks."
"YES. And I'm thinking about how you can be in a black body and not know how to interact with it. Not know how to empathize with it. To misname or mischaracterize yourself and your beauty and your fear and the process of unlearning that.
Amber Butts : "How to listen when necessary. How to move with it and not against it. How the histories of abuse effect the relationship we build with it. How to name it beauty and not monster. How to be brave and intentional."
Brian Alsup: " ^^^^that. Especially the last two sentences. Because you're literally having to create health and options and longevity for black bodies in a culture/environment that wants those black bodies to have access to none of those things."
Amber Butts: " Accessibility is important to the work. We have to have it. Our families have to have it. Thinking about how our relationship to our bodies effects/ interacts with other folks' relationships to their bodies, how complicated of a thing that is. These are necessary. How are our bodies speaking to one another?"
Brian Alsup: "Damn, that is an amazing Question. Honestly, our bodies are saying (and doing) some real horrible and violent things to y'all's bodies. How do black male bodies listen? How has the language of white supremacy affected us bodily?"
Amber Butts : "Yes. The way strength is viewed is skewed. How have these narratives taught y'all that we can't both exist? How have you ignored the emotional strength within you? How can you take up less space so that we take up more?"
Brian Alsup : "You are asking these amazing questions. I think that cis het black men are afraid. Afraid of white supremacy and of black women. And I think white supremacy has done a good job of making both indistinguishable enemies. That of course living in a patriarchal/anti-black society that has denied us any emotional economy would make us fear black women. But that doesn't mean y'all are enemies. And that doesn't mean we have to be enemies to y'all physically and emotionally and mentally. It just means we need to heal. But since we can't fight a system, we fight y'all."
" I think we ignore our emotional strength because we're taught that there isn't anything strong in being emotional. Which is a lie, but unpacking that means we have to do a lot of looking at ourselves. Black men really hate mirrors. I think the ways we can take up less space is by offering healing spaces where cis-het black men can figure out how to repair our own wounds and let black women and black queer and trans* folks have y'all space."
wow!
" Something that Kiese taught me was the power of curiosity when questioning. Like if I ask a black man,"Why you abusing that black woman, that black child, that black queer/trans person?" In so many words of course. And they retort with something along the lines of a history of racism. I'll ask,"Well, I don't see any white people around. I see your hands and their hurt. Was there a white man present when you abused so and so?" And know that when I'm asking that question that it's not condescending. I'm really gauging your proximity to whiteness and how our black male bodies replicate it."
Wednesday Ofori: " I think that I have a really hard time with the reality that black women are feared by black men, in addition to everyone else. Where are we supposed to go? Where are we supposed to be? Do you understand what a betrayal it feels like to have folks' back (to the death) and then come to realize that they fear you, are intimidated by you, and don't know how to see you or love you?? It's such a hard pill to swallow. And we've been swallowing it for generations...
And just for sake of clarity in this convo, there are folks that are all of which you speak of (black women, queer, and trans*folks). I'm a cis black queer woman and in some of these conversations, black cis het men think that they don't need to have any accountability to us and don't see how the violence may impact us (differently)."
Amber Butts :And that some of the folks whose backs we have will do anything to make us small, justify abuse against us, tell us what we deserve, present us as everything but who we are, make it seem like the reality that we live, where Black men don't support us is fictional. That entire generations aren't lost because of it. It's like walking into an alley and thinking that you know exactly who to fear and then you realize that everyone around is there to do you harm. Intentional or not. And you still have to go through that alley. You still have to fight because it is within you. You can not turn your back on the backs that turn against you. You were not built for it and yet sometimes you wish you were."
------------on another stage, same thread
Robert D. Gordon : "I shudder to think what he'd want her to do with said switch..."
Brian Alsup: "^^^^If he wanted her to put the switch in his sphincter then that's fine. It's nothing to shudder at. There are way more things for us to worry about than what Kanye likes sexually. Let's focus on the abuse."
Eric Danforth : "yeah I LOVE Amber and I thought her clapback was a tad homophobic as we know what it means to symbolize. That said, his abuse of her and her child is way more important and a far bigger offense."
Brian Alsup: " Eric Danforth Definitely. I agree, fam."
Wednesday Ofori: " Let's be real. She knew that it would be an effective clapback because of how fragile his (faux) masculinity is. What did he expect when he came for her and her child? Black men KNOW BETTER. Even if we don't believe what we say, we will talk crazy if you come for us like that. #blackfacts"
Brian Alsup : "Truth."
---------------third leg
Angel Nafis: " my friend once joked that "Kanye is what grief looks like in public" and it's too true."
------Kiese/ translates his post
Kiese Laymon : "He needs to pick the switch give it to Amber and she needs to whip his ass."
[i been reading it for the last hour!]
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