I want all nonblack people to watch this video, especially white people.
This is the best video IMO that displays the depth of what it feels like to be Black in the midst of white supremacy.
This is the rage that burns in so many Black people and eats at us when it is not sufficiently soothed by our self restraint and years of learning to cope with and sit with us. This is the pain that shortens Black people’s very lives, that we smother each day. This is the justified yet unjustly ignored anger we have learned to hold and to aim and to deal with without breaking (too much).
This is the fire that those of you who are just showing up on the scene are learning to sit beside.
When you ask us ‘how we’re doing’, understand that this is the real core of it, every single day, and we have had to learn to laugh, to sing, to dance, to work, to grieve, to heal around heavy, heavy pain. I don’t get the feeling that y’all are expecting nor could you handle if we answered you like this. But I do feel like you should already know how we’re doing: we’re Black.
So y’all, sit with this video for a hot minute.
Kimberly Jones, you are a warrior. I feel every moment of this, every diaphragm flex, every tenuously tempered shout. And I hope that you are taking a break, and experiencing a moment of peace, because you deserve it.
Dismantling the Lies of Abusive Parents Masterlist
Resources
Giving you food and clothing is the bare minimum
You don’t owe gratitude for food and clothes you needed as a child
You had the right for basic resources
Parents shaming you for costing money is ironic and stupid
What it means when they say ‘This is MY house’
My house = my rules is blackmail
Children don’t owe absolute obedience for being fed and sheltered
Physical abuse
You are allowed to refuse any touch, not only violence
If they ‘don’t know they’re hurting you’, why do they ignore or punish you when you protest?
Hitting children is irrational and doesn’t work
You cannot ‘provoke’ your parents to abuse you if they’re not abusive
Why do parents actually hit, manipulate and traumatize children
Blatant Lies
Care, nurture and affection do not make you weak
They’re lying when they say it ‘wasn’t that bad’‘
You wouldn’t have grown up spoiled if not for abuse
You got too affected by it’ is a lie
Your parents are not ‘just too emotionally immature’ to understand abuse
‘You’re not living in the real world!’ is nonsense
You’re not worthless, a burden, ungrateful, or stupid, and your parents know that.
Constant undermining of your accomplishments is abuse
Not being allowed to talk about the past is symptom of abuse
Parents who want you to be happy vs look happy
You are not abusive for resisting abuse
When they claim ‘they didn’t mean it’, it’s still abuse
Your parents are responsible for their own actions regardless of how badly they try to shift blame on you
Psychological abuse
Blind Obedience is not required in a healthy upbringing
Disgust is a weapon abusive parents use on their kids
If they say they love you, but walk all over your feelings, they don’t
Parents don’t have the right to enter your room to scream at you
Parents insisting for you to be ‘tough’ are doing it to hide the trauma
Even if a kid acts like ‘they can take it’, it’s still abuse
Pretending abuse is discipline will leave children permanently scarred
It’s inhumane to control and shame children’s reactions to abuse
Why don’t you already know this? vs Teaching you necessary skills
Acting like they’ll change is escape sabotage
Parents are responsible for protecting children from harm
References to how healthy parenting looks like
Not being allowed to be angry with your parents is psychological abuse
If parents want you to act way you did when you were little, they’re dangerous
Threats about how hard your life will be later on, are bad for you
Lack of continuity and ever-changing rules will cause anxiety
Forced obedience will lead you to abusive relationships
Parents acting like you’re a ‘bad’ is a shame tactic to control you
There’s healthy and abusive ways to give children chores
Revisioning the past and insisting you remember it wrong is gaslighting
If your parents make you suicidal, they’re abusive
Parents threatening ‘they could be worse’ is abuse
Always assuming the worst intentions for your actions is wrong
Keeping children hostage in abuse is torture
If this hits home, also read Recognizing Abuse Masterlist
I should have been studying for my finals over the weekend. Instead, I drew Princess Unattainabelle. Also, why must my scanner murder my pink tones so viciously?
I tried to scroll past this. I really did
reblog this if you think art IS work, and that it takes time and effort and is a valid source of income.
"what if a dangerous man pretends to be trans to-" what if we actually dealt with the underlying causes of dangerous men. what if predators faced real consequences more often. what if you stopped using trans women as a proxy for your grievances with liberal feminism's individualist denial of the need to fight systemic issues.
what if you stopped assigning blame for patriarchy's evils to one of its more vulnerable victim groups.
Accurate.
time with complex trauma is like. i need to do everything all at once and if i don't i'm a failure, even if there's nothing to do. three months ago feels like yesterday but i can hardly remember yesterday anyway. i'm running out of time. for what? i don't know. i need everything to slow down but my life is so stagnant. i can't go to sleep because the day can't end, but i need the day to end or i'll go insane. i'm constantly worrying about the future but it feels like i have no future. i'm running out of time. for what? i don't know. time has no meaning but every second is the end of the world.
or is this just me?
Happy pride! I know many horrible things are happening, but please remember that joy can be an act of rebellion. Shine your light, your colours. Show up as the authentic you whenever you feel safe to do so, and I hope one day that is everywhere at all times. You deserve to live a life that is authentic to you, and the thing is about authenticity is that it ripples out into the world and sometimes it reaches someone who needs it and makes them feel seen and understood, and maybe even makes them a little more brave and a little more hopeful. I wish you hope and I wish you joy! 🌸
If you’ve been thru a phase of your life feeling hopeless, depressed, broken, scared, suffering pain that you didn’t believe would ever stop, or having your whole will to go on eaten away by something devastating that happened to you, and you were alone and abandoned and ashamed of feeling this pain, I want you to know that it wasn’t okay.
Every human, especially young humans, can get overwhelmed and devastated and drown in their dark thoughts and fears, and nobody deserves to go thru that alone. If you were living close to other people, and they failed to notice, or ignored your state, or tried to make sure that you feel guilty for it, ashamed of it, deserving of it, or responsible for it, that wasn’t okay. That’s not what’s supposed to happen. Human society isn’t built on kicking someone when they’re down. Humans are not supposed to see someone suffering and deteriorating and then go ‘serves them right’ or ‘it’s their own fault’. That’s despicable.
You were not supposed to be left alone in your pain. You were supposed to get help and support. Even if you couldn’t imagine how that support and help would look like, if you couldn’t believe you deserved any, even if you felt so worthless and unimportant that taking someone’s time and energy would have felt horrible and selfish to you, you still deserved help and support during the worst period of your life.
Someone should have checked up on you. Someone should have made sure that you don’t spend all or most of your time alone, drowning in your own fears and pain, neglected. Someone should have offered you conversation and reassurances, even if they wouldn’t have fixed the underlying issue. You shouldn’t have been going thru it alone and unchecked. Someone should have taken measures to make sure you know you’re cared for, that people are going to put an active effort into changing your situation for the better. You should have been reminded, with actions and words, that you are still lovable, that you’re desired to be a part of society, that you’re not something to leave behind in a room until you either get your shit together or fail and be forgotten. You should have never feared for your relevance or your value while already suffering from everything else. You shouldn’t have been left to your own devices, with your social needs completely unfulfilled, with society turning their entire back on you.
That kind of situation makes you feel alone for a long, long time. That’s the kind of thing that makes you lose hope in people, and it should have never come to it. You should never have been in so much pain and alone in it. You never deserved that kind of cruel and contemptuous abandonment. You should never have been thru something that makes other people feel like a threat or a dead end. Your problems should never have felt so large that your place in the world your humanity and would be revoked over them.
Jason & Friends